Two Chinese astronauts have just earned their place in space history.
Cai Xuzhe and Song Lingdong were part of China’s three-person Shenzhou 19 mission, and they conducted a spacewalk outside the capsule for more than nine hours. Tiangong Space Station from late Monday night (December 16) to Tuesday morning (December 17), according to officials from the China Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO).
This beat the previous record for the duration of a single extravehicular activity (EVA), which was 8 hours and 56 minutes. According to NASA. The logo was set in outer space by NASA astronauts James Voss and Susan Helms. international space station Back in March 2001.
This week’s extravehicular activity was the first for the Shenzhou 19 mission, which arrived in Tiangong on October 29 for a six-month stay.
During the spacewalk, Cai and Song “worked closely with astronaut Wang Haoze who stayed in Tiangong, and completed the installation of space station equipment with the support of the space station’s robotic arm and ground scientific researchers.” space debris Inspection and disposal of protective devices, extravehicular equipment and facilities, etc. Tuesday WeChat update.
“The EVA was a complete success,” they added, noting that Song, 34, “became the first Chinese astronaut born in the 1990s to conduct an EVA.”
According to Space NewsThe spacewalk began at 11:51 pm ET (0451 GMT on December 17) on Monday when Shenzhou 19 Commander Cai left Tiangong’s Wentian module. More than 90 minutes later, at 1:32 a.m. ET (0632 GMT), Song followed suit.
CMSEO officials wrote in an update that the two astronauts returned to space at 8:57 a.m. (1357 GMT) on Tuesday. The figures put the EVA’s duration at 9 hours and 6 minutes, which means it’s only 10 minutes longer than the old record.
According to SpaceNews, this record-breaking EVA is the 17th overall result outside Tiangong. The core module of the space station “Tianhe” entered orbit in April 2021. Construction of outpost.