China's space exploration endeavors have made another success.
The nation's experimental newest-generation of manned spacecraft has successfully returned to Earth, according to the China Manned Space Engineering Office.
The office said the re-entry capsule of the spaceship landed at Dongfeng landing site in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region at 13:49 BJT on Friday.
At 12:21 BJT, the Beijing Space Flight Control Center issued a return command to the test spaceship via a ground test and control station. Experts say the service module was successfully separated from the return module. After that, the test ship started its engine and returned safely. Search and rescue teams found the target in time and arrived at the landing site for disposal.
The test spaceship was launched into orbit by the country's newly developed Long March-5B heavy-lift launch vehicle from Wenchang Satellite Launch Center site on Tuesday. After orbiting Earth for two days and completing a number of space scientific and technical experiments, the successful re-entry has verified some key technologies such as heat protection, control, group umbrella recovery and partial reuse.
The new spaceship is nine meters high, with a maximum diameter of 4.5 meters. It can hold six to seven astronauts. The spaceship consists of two capsules, a re-entry capsule and a service one. The re-entry capsule is where astronauts live, while the service capsule provides propulsion and power.
Coated with new light, ablation-resistant material, the re-entry capsule can withstand temperatures of over 1,000 degrees Celsius when entering the Earth's atmosphere at a second cosmic velocity. Inside, it has an inner layer of medial walls to form the cockpit for astronauts.
Apart from the equipment needed to ensure the safety of astronauts and to control the capsule, such as the environmental controls and health protection equipment as well as human-machine interaction equipment, most of the devices are placed in the unsealed layer between the coat of the capsule and the steel wall of the cockpit. Such a design has left the cockpit with more room, and it is relatively danger-free.
The ship adopted grouped umbrella pneumatic deceleration and airbag landing buffering during the re-entry process. Two of the three umbrellas will be able to ensure a safe return. Six airbag buffers will help the capsule to make a soft-landing at the landing site.
The new spaceship is reusable. It only needs changes to its thermal-protective coating and its protective cap of docking devices before relaunching again. A modular design can ensure the re-entry capsule is compatible with bigger service modules for a mission even to the Moon.
The testing ship will gather vital data for the design and construction of the final mode. According to the China Manned Space Agency, the core concept is to make the ship safe and comfortable.
