{"id":197525,"date":"2025-11-24T11:53:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T11:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/197525\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T11:53:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T11:53:07","slug":"china-to-launch-shenzhou-22-spacecraft-on-november-25-state-media-reports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/197525\/","title":{"rendered":"China to launch Shenzhou-22 spacecraft on November 25, state media reports"},"content":{"rendered":"

BEIJING, Nov 24 (Reuters) – China will launch the unmanned Shenzhou-22 spacecraft<\/a> on November 25, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Monday, a move that will help return the country’s space station and manned flight programme to normality after a vessel was damaged in early November.The Shenzhou-22 spacecraft is being sent to China’s space station Tiangong to replace the Shenzhou-21, which was forced to return to Earth six months before schedule after another vessel docked at the station was damaged<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The early departure of the Shenzhou-21<\/a> left Tiangong and a trio of Chinese astronauts manning it without a flightworthy vessel for 10 days so far, an unprecedented situation for the space station since it fully began operations in late 2022.<\/p>\n

With the Shenzhou-22 set to remove this risk, it remains to be seen how Chinese space authorities will handle the damaged Shenzhou-20 vessel, which experts have suggested could be undocked from Tiangong and de-orbited over the Pacific.<\/p>\n

The Shenzhou-22 will be launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, state news agency Xinhua reported, as with all other recent Shenzhou missions.<\/p>\n

The key difference with its predecessors is that this launch will be unmanned, a necessary condition to avoid exceeding Tiangong’s ideal capacity of three long-term residents.<\/p>\n

This means that China’s next crewed spaceflight mission, scheduled for around April next year, will likely be the Shenzhou-23.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the month, damage sustained by the Shenzhou-20 led its crew to stay aboard the space station an extra nine days with the newly arrived Shenzhou-21 crew, forcing Tiangong to operate at its maximum capacity of six for longer than usual.<\/p>\n

Reporting by Eduardo Baptista; Editing by Jan Harvey and Louise Heavens<\/p>\n

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Purchase Licensing Rights<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BEIJING, Nov 24 (Reuters) – China will launch the unmanned Shenzhou-22 spacecraft on November 25, state broadcaster CCTV…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[270],"tags":[82495,82496,2786,82703,53515,82995,82538,82545,82546,83395,82535,82556,82549,82541,82550,82776,82553,83396,82536,84041,83397,83391,83393,83787,82969,82777,82547,82539,82557,82537,82540,82554,82552,85720,83394,82548,82551,85719,83113,82702,18,82578,45748,19,82504,82505,17,82565,83788,82970,83002,17588,82512,133,83126,451,82968,82513,753,82999,30150,84334],"class_list":["post-197525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-aer","tag-aero","tag-asia","tag-asxpac","tag-cn","tag-coms","tag-destabx","tag-destafa","tag-destbnx","tag-destc","tag-destcsa","tag-destd","tag-destdnp","tag-deste","tag-destfun","tag-destg","tag-destgns","tag-destgro","tag-destlby","tag-destm","tag-destmtl","tag-desto","tag-destoil","tag-destousscm","tag-destouswdm","tag-destpge","tag-destpsc","tag-destrast","tag-destrbn","tag-destreulb","tag-destrnp","tag-destrws","tag-destrwsa","tag-destseatp","tag-destsof","tag-destu","tag-destucdptest","tag-destz","tag-dli","tag-easia","tag-eire","tag-emrg","tag-gen","tag-ie","tag-indg","tag-inds","tag-ireland","tag-mtpix","tag-packageus-science","tag-packageworld-news","tag-pxp","tag-satcom","tag-sci","tag-science","tag-soci","tag-space","tag-spc","tag-spex","tag-tech","tag-teeq","tag-tmt","tag-topicworld-china-slug"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}