Yesterday, the three Chinese taikonauts of the Shenzhou 17 mission returned to Earth after spending a little more than six months on the Chinese space station Tiangong. The three taikonauts Jiang Xinlin, Tang Hongbo, and Tang Shengjie had left the station about nine hours earlier to land at a site called Dongfeng in China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. It’s a procedure that significantly reduces the time to return to Earth and now has become routine.

During their mission, Tang Hongbo and Tang Shengjie performed two spacewalks, which lasted 7 hours and 25 minutes and 7 hours and 52 minutes respectively. They were used to carry out some maintenance tasks, in particular on the Tianhe central module’s solar panels.

On January 17, 2024, the Tianzhou 7 cargo spacecraft arrived with approximately 7,400 kilograms of supplies of various types, including those for the crew such as food and water, and those for the station such as propellant, experiments, and scientific instruments. Resupply missions to the Tiangong space station are becoming routine as well but each time new instruments and experiments allow the expansion of scientific and technological activities.

The return of the Shenzhou 17 mission taikonauts, who were launched on October 26, 2023, happened without incident. Six months ago, their colleagues on the Shenzhou 16 mission experienced a bumpy landing due to a tear in the parachute that prevented the capsule from slowing down to the expected speed.

Each success represents a step forward for China’s space program. A new Moon mission is scheduled to launch on May 3 to collect samples on the far side to bring back to Earth. However, the most ambitious goal is to send taikonauts to the Moon by 2030. The Chinese authorities only release information when they deem it useful according to their criteria, so it’s difficult to have clear ideas about the progress of this project. A new space race seems to have begun, and this time, the Chinese intend to be protagonists. An optimistic schedule regarding the American Artemis program’s crewed missions proved to be impossible, making it difficult to understand which of the two programs will be the first to bring humans to the Moon.