November 25, 2025 | 09:29 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - China has launched an uncrewed spacecraft to bring back three astronauts stranded at the Tiangong space station with no passage to Earth. State broadcaster CCTV showed the Long March-2F rocket carrying the Shenzhou-22 spacecraft lifting off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center shortly after midday local time on Tuesday, November 25, 2025.
According to Al Jazeera, the Shenzhou-22 mission was originally planned to be crewed and launched in 2026. However, its launch was brought forward after debris damaged the Shenzhou-20, currently docked at the Tiangong station, making it unsafe to bring humans back to Earth.
This disrupted the last crew rotation at China's crewed space station in November. Unable to return to Earth with the Shenzhou-20, the three taikonauts, the term for Chinese astronauts, who arrived in April for a six-month stay, were forced to use the Shenzhou-21 to return to Earth.
This left the three astronauts currently at Tiangong with no viable spacecraft to return them home in case of an emergency. The uncrewed Shenzhou-22 will fill that void.
According to Chinese officials, the three crew members, Zhang Lu, Wu Fei, and Zhang Hongzhang, are working normally in space. This incident marks a rare setback for China's rapidly expanding space program, which aims to send astronauts to the moon by 2030.
In recent decades, Beijing has poured billions of dollars into the sector in an effort to match the capabilities of the United States, Russia, and Europe. China became the third country to send humans into orbit after the US and the former Soviet Union in 2022.
Launched on April 24, 2025, the Shenzhou-20 mission carried taikonauts Wang Jie, Chen Zhongrui, and commander Chen Deng to the Tiangong Space Station for a six-month crew rotation mission. They were supposed to return on November 5, but micro meteoroid debris damaged their orbital spacecraft, preventing them from bringing the taikonauts back.
According to India Today, the taikonauts remained in outer space for another nine days, extending their stay to 204 days, the longest stay for any Chinese astronaut. On October 31, the Shenzhou-21 transported commander Zhang Lu, along with Wu Fei and Zhang Hongzhang, to China's space station as part of the 10th expedition to the orbiting laboratory.
China successfully brought back the stranded Shenzhou-20 taikonauts to Earth with the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft docking on November 14. They rescued the taikonauts in less than two weeks after their scheduled return.
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