China Launches Uncrewed Shenzhou 22 to Tiangong for Backup

China launched an uncrewed spacecraft on November 25 to restore emergency evacuation capabilities for three astronauts aboard its Tiangong space station, following damage to another vehicle from suspected space debris. The Shenzhou 22 spacecraft lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert at 4:11 a.m. UTC aboard a Long March 2F rocket and docked with the station's Tianhe core module about 3.5 hours later, at an altitude of roughly 400 kilometers above Earth.

The mission addressed a safety gap that emerged earlier in November. On November 5, during a crew handover on Tiangong, officials discovered minor cracks in a port window of the Shenzhou 20 spacecraft, likely caused by a small fragment of orbital debris. The vehicle, which had carried three astronauts to the station in April for a six-month stay, was deemed unsafe for returning them to Earth. Chinese space authorities decided to send the Shenzhou 20 crew home using the newly arrived Shenzhou 21 spacecraft, which had docked on October 31 with its own three-person team. That crew landed safely in Inner Mongolia on November 14, but the maneuver left the Shenzhou 21 astronauts without a dedicated...