The spacecraft Shenzhou-11, which is carrying
taikonauts Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong, separated from the orbiting
Tiangong-2 space lab on Thursday.
The
separation marks the beginning of the journey home for the two men,
after having lived and worked in Tiangong-2 for 30 days, the longest
stay in space by Chinese astronauts.
Before
the separation, the astronauts extended their thanks and respect to
their ground team and to everyone who had supported China’s space
programme.
After the separation,
Shenzhou-11 would remain at a point near the space lab before they are
given leave by the ground team to embark on their return journey.
Around
one day later, the reentry module will descend from an orbit about 393
kilometres above Earth, a true test for Shenzhou-11’s reentry system.
Report
says Tiangong-2 will remain in its orbit and remote experiments will
continue until it docks with Tianzhou-1, China’s first cargo spacecraft,
which is set to be launched in April 2017.
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