Shenzhou XIII astronauts make history in 1st spacewalk

The Shenzhou XIII mission crew completed their first extravehicular activity, or spacewalk, early on Monday morning, with Senior Colonel Wang Yaping, 41, becoming China’s first female spacewalker.

The extravehicular operation began at 6:51 pm when Zhai opened a hatch. Then Zhai and Wang spent about one and a half hours moving out of the Tiangong space station, the China Manned Space Agency said in a statement, adding that the spacewalk finished at 1:16 am.

During the 6.5-hour operation, the pair mounted new components on the station’s robotic arm and used it to practice extravehicular maneuvers, further verified the robotic arm's capabilities and its compatibility with the needs of astronauts, examined the safety and performance of support devices in an extravehicular task and also tested the functions of a new type of extravehicular suit, the agency said.

The third member in the crew — Senior Colonel Ye Guangfu — remained inside the station to monitor and support the spacewalk, it added.

Before this operation, all of China’s three previous spacewalks were carried out by male astronauts.

The Shenzhou XIII mission was launched on Oct 16 by a Long March 2F carrier rocket that blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China's Gobi Desert, with the crew soon entering the Tiangong space station, whose name means Heavenly Palace. They are scheduled to spend six months working in the station, making it China's longest space mission.

Before the spacewalk, they had moved living and working materials from the Tianzhou 2 and 3 cargo spaceships to the station's core module, named Tianhe, or Harmony of Heavens; tested their extravehicular suits; and conducted training on robotic arm control and medical aid; according to the manned space agency.

The Shenzhou XIII crew is tasked with a wide range of assignments, such as performing two to three spacewalks to install a small robotic arm onto a larger one, verifying key procedures and technologies like manual control of the robotic arms and robotic arm-assisted movement of station modules, checking the performance and capability of devices inside the station, and testing support instruments for astronauts' life and work in long-term flights.

The astronauts will conduct scientific experiments and technology demonstrations in space medicine, microgravity physics and other fields. They will also deliver educational lectures that will be televised for Chinese students to watch, program officials said.

Shenzhou XIII is the fourth spacecraft to visit the Tiangong station, and also the second crewed ship to transport astronauts to the orbiting outpost.

One of China’s most challenging and sophisticated space endeavors, Tiangong, or Heavenly Palace, will eventually consist of three main components－the Tianhe core module attached to two large space labs－with a combined weight of nearly 70 metric tons. The entire station is set to work for about 15 years in a low-Earth orbit about 400 kilometers above the planet.

The first astronauts inside Tiangong－Major General Nie Haisheng, Major General Liu Boming and Senior Colonel Tang Hongbo－finished their 92-day mission in mid-September. They performed two spacewalks.