Item 1 of 2 A Long March-2F rocket carrying the Shenzhou-20 spacecraft takes off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center for a crewed mission to China’s Tiangong space station, near Jiuquan, Gansu province, China April 24, 2025. China Daily via REUTERS <\/p>\n
[1\/2]<\/b>A Long March-2F rocket carrying the Shenzhou-20 spacecraft takes off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center for a crewed mission to China’s Tiangong space station, near Jiuquan, Gansu province, China April 24, 2025. China Daily via REUTERS Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab<\/a><\/p>\n BEIJING, Dec 1 (Reuters) – China’s first crewed spacecraft to be ruled unfit to fly in mid-mission will be sent back to Earth for experts to assess the damage it sustained more closely, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Monday.<\/p>\n On November 5, the Shenzhou-20 spacecraft was meant to bring its crew back to China just after finishing a six-month stay aboard Beijing’s permanently inhabited space station Tiangong.<\/p>\n Sign up here.<\/a><\/p>\n But after the Shenzhou-20 crew discovered a crack in the window of the vessel’s return capsule right before takeoff, the return mission was delayed<\/a> – a first in China’s human spaceflight program.The vessel’s crew was forced to return to Earth in a different spaceship<\/a> nine days later, temporarily leaving Tiangong and its remaining trio of resident astronauts without a flightworthy vessel.China’s space-industrial complex raced to remove that risk by working overtime to execute its first emergency launch mission<\/a> on November 25, just 20 days after the initial delay was announced.<\/p>\n But the future of the damaged Shenzhou-20 vessel, which remains docked at the Chinese space station, was unknown until CCTV’s televised report on Monday.<\/p>\n Ji Qiming, a spokesperson for the China Manned Space Agency, told the state broadcaster that Shenzhou-20 would return without crew to Earth, adding that on its way back it would “obtain the most authentic experimental data”, without elaborating further.<\/p>\n Jia Shijin, a designer of the Shenzhou spacecraft, revealed to CCTV more details about the tiny crack that permanently altered China’s crewed spaceflight schedule.<\/p>\n “Our preliminary judgement is that the piece of space debris was smaller than 1 millimetre, but it was travelling incredibly fast. The resulting crack extends over a centimetre,” Jia said.<\/p>\n “But we can’t directly examine it in orbit, we will study it closely when Shenzhou-20 returns.”<\/p>\n Jia added that the decision to delay the Shenzhou-20 return mission was based on a worst-case scenario where the window crack might spread, leading to cabin depressurisation and the ingress of high-speed gases.<\/p>\n If this happened, it could then rapidly overwhelm life-support systems and prove fatal to the astronauts.<\/p>\n Reporting by Eduardo Baptista; editinjg by Mark Heinrich<\/p>\n Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab<\/a><\/p>\n