An unpiloted Chinese spacecraft launched late Monday and linked up with the country’s Tiangong space station a few hours later, providing a lifeboat for three astronauts stuck in orbit without a safe ride home.
A Long March 2F rocket fired its engines and lifted off with the Shenzhou 22 spacecraft, carrying cargo instead of a crew, at 11:11 pm EST Monday (04:11 UTC Tuesday). The spacecraft docked with the Tiangong station nearly 250 miles (400 kilometers) above the Earth about three-and-a-half hours later.
Chinese engineers worked fast to move up the launch of the Shenzhou 22, originally set to fly next year. On November 5, officials discovered one of the two crew ferry ships docked to the Tiangong station had a cracked window, likely from an impact with a small fragment of space junk.
Officials made the discovery during a crew handover on the station, a few days after the arrival of a fresh three-person crew and just before the departure of three astronauts who had been in orbit since April. After engineers deemed the damaged Shenzhou 20 ship unsafe, Chinese space officials decided to send the outgoing crew back to Earth on the unblemished Shenzhou 21 spacecraft.
Shenzhou 21 successfully landed with its three occupants on November 14, but that still left three astronauts on the Tiangong station without a safe return craft. On the ground at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China’s remote Gobi Desert, technicians scrambled to ready a standby rocket and ship for launch as soon as possible.
A remarkable turnaround
“The mission command swiftly activated its contingency plan,” the China Manned Space Agency said in a statement. “The entire project team responded calmly and scientifically, with participating research and testing units working collaboratively to overcome challenges.”
The rapid turnaround offers a “successful example for efficient emergency response in the international space industry,” the space agency said. “It vividly embodies the spirit of manned spaceflight: exceptionally hardworking, exceptionally capable, exceptionally resilient, and exceptionally dedicated.”
Now, 20 days after the saga began, the Tiangong outpost again has a lifeboat for its long-term residents. Astronauts Zhang Lu, Fu Wei, and Zhang Hongzhang will return to Earth on the Shenzhou 22 spacecraft next year, soon after the arrival of their three replacements.
While this crew is just one month into their planned six-month expedition, an emergency could force them to leave the station and return home at any time. Although remote, another collision with space junk, a major systems failure, or a medical emergency involving one of the astronauts could trigger an evacuation. That’s why Chinese officials wanted to quickly launch Shenzhou 22 to give the crew a ticket home.
The International Space Station follows the same policy, with SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft and Russian Soyuz ships serving as lifeboats until their crews’ scheduled return to Earth.
The situation with the damaged Shenzhou 20 spacecraft is a reminder of two recent incidents on the ISS. First, in 2022, a Soyuz crew ship that was docked at the ISS sprang a coolant leak—also due to a suspected space debris strike—spraying a shower of frozen ammonia crystals into space and rendering it unsafe to bring its crew home. Russia launched an empty replacement Soyuz two months later, and the damaged Soyuz MS-22 craft ultimately made a successful landing without a crew.
And then, last year, Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule suffered a series of helium leaks and propulsion problems that made NASA managers uncomfortable with its ability to safely return to Earth with astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. The two astronauts remained on the ISS as Starliner made a successful uncrewed landing in September 2024, while SpaceX launched an already-scheduled Crew Dragon mission to the station with two of its four seats unoccupied. The Dragon spacecraft brought Wilmore and Williams home in March.
The incidents with Shenzhou 20 and Soyuz MS-22 highlight the risks of space junk in low-Earth orbit, especially tiny debris fragments that evade detection by tracking telescopes and radars. A minuscule piece of space debris traveling at several miles per second can pack a punch. Crews at the Tiangong outpost ventured outside the station multiple times in the last few years to install space debris shielding to protect the outpost from such impacts.
Luckily, the damage to Shenzhou 20’s window and Soyuz MS-22’s dramatic ammonia leak were unmistakable. Tiny impacts on other unseen parts of a spacecraft would be more difficult to find.
China’s first human spaceflight emergency
It has been 22 years since China sent Yang Liwei, its first astronaut, into orbit on the Shenzhou 5 mission. Since then, China’s human spaceflight program has seemingly executed its missions like clockwork. Chinese astronauts performed the program’s first spacewalk in 2008, then China launched a pair of mini-space labs in 2011 and 2016, each hosting Shenzhou crews for stays lasting several weeks.
China started launching modules for Tiangong, its first permanently occupied space station, in 2021 and completed the lab’s initial assembly in 2022. Since then, Chinese astronauts have maintained a permanent presence in low-Earth orbit.
Chinese state media previously reported that the China Manned Space Agency, managed by the country’s military, kept a rocket and Shenzhou spacecraft on standby in the event of an emergency in space. Chinese officials tapped into this rescue capability with Shenzhou 22 this month.
China’s actions with the Shenzhou program this month are evidence of a mature human spaceflight program. In parallel with operations on the Tiangong space station, China is developing new rockets, a deep space capsule, and a human-rated lunar lander to carry astronauts to the Moon by 2030.
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