China’s Shenzhou-19 astronauts return to Earth

BEIJING: Three Chinese astronauts returned to Earth on Wednesday after six months on the country´s space station, state media footage showed, as Beijing advances towards its aim to become a major celestial power.

China has ploughed billions of dollars into its space programme in recent years in an effort to achieve what President Xi Jinping describes as the country´s “space dream”.

The world´s second-largest economy has bold plans to send a crewed mission to the Moon by the end of the decade and eventually build a base on the lunar surface.

Its latest launch last week ferried a trio of astronauts to the Tiangong space station, heralding the start of the Shenzhou-20 mission.

They have taken over from Shenzhou-19 crew Cai Xuzhe, Song Lingdong and Wang Haoze, whose landing capsule touched down in the northern Inner Mongolia region on Wednesday.

Xinhua state news agency said the group were in “good health” shortly after touching back down on Earth.

Pictures from state broadcaster CCTV showed the capsule, attached to a red-and-white striped parachute, descending through an azure sky before hitting the ground in a cloud of brown desert dust. Teams of officials in white and orange jumpsuits then rushed to open the golden craft, and one planted a fluttering national flag into the sandy soil nearby.

The Shenzhou-19 crew had worked on the space station since October, where they carried out experiments and set a new record for the longest ever spacewalk.

They were initially scheduled to return on Tuesday, but the mission was postponed due to bad weather at the landing site, according to Chinese authorities.