Astronauts return after China's longest crewed mission

Beijing: Three astronauts from China returned to Earth on Saturday after 183 days in space, marking China's longest crewed mission ever.

The Shenzhou-13 spacecraft consisted of a crew of one woman, Wang Yaping, and two men, Zhai Zhigang and Ye Guangfu.

They returned to Earth shortly before 10 a.m. local time (0200 UTC), after spending six months on the Tianhe core module of China's Tiangong space station.

The Shenzhou 13 space capsule landed in the Gobi desert in the northern region of Inner Mongolia, shown live on state TV.

The astronauts all reported that they were "feeling good."

Live footage from state broadcaster CCTV showed the capsule landing in a cloud of dust, with a ground crew who had kept clear of the landing site rushing in helicopters to reach the capsule.

Six months will become the normal astronaut residence period aboard the Chinese space station, said CCTV.

During the mission, astronaut Wang carried out the first spacewalk by a Chinese woman. The 42-year-old woman was a military transport pilot.

Mission commander Zhai, 55, is a former fighter pilot who performed China's first spacewalk in 2008. Ye, 41, is a People's Liberation Army pilot.

The trio completed two spacewalks, carried out numerous scientific experiments, set up equipment and tested technologies for future construction during their time in orbit.

They also beamed back physics lessons for high school students.

The astronauts have prepared the cabin facilities and equipment for the crew of the incoming Shenzhou-14, expected to be launched in the coming months.

The trio originally launched in the Shenzhou-13 from the Gobi Desert in northwestern China last October.

They were the second of four crewed missions during 2021-2022 sent to assemble the country's first permanent space station — Tiangong, which means "heavenly palace."

China has put billions into its military-run space program, with hopes of having a permanently crewed space station by the end of 2022.

China has been excluded from the International Space Station (ISS) since 2011, when the US banned NASA from engaging with it.

The second-largest economy has plans to be on par with the US and Russia, which have decades of experience in space exploration.

Beijing is also planning to build a base on the moon, and the country's National Space Administration said it aims to launch a crewed lunar mission by 2029.

China does not plan to use its space station for global cooperation on the scale of the ISS. However, Beijing has said it is open to foreign collaboration, although the scope of that cooperation is not yet clear.