Chinese Astronauts Return After Debris Delay

Three Chinese astronauts safely returned to Earth on Friday after a nine-day delay caused by damage to their spacecraft from suspected space debris, marking the longest mission for any crew at the nation's Tiangong space station.

The crew, consisting of mission commander Chen Dong, Chen Zhongrui and Wang Jie, undocked from the orbital outpost aboard the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft at 3:14 a.m. UTC and landed at 4:40 p.m. Beijing time in the Dongfeng landing site in northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The site, located in a remote area of the Gobi Desert, saw recovery teams extract the astronauts about 30 minutes after touchdown, placing them in chairs before transporting them by orange recovery vehicles across the barren landscape. China's Manned Space Agency reported that all three were in good health following their 204-day stay in orbit, which began with a launch from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on April 24.

The original return plan called for the astronauts to depart on November 5 aboard their Shenzhou-20 spacecraft, four days after the arrival of a replacement three-person crew on Shenzhou-21. However, officials scrapped the schedule after detecting tiny...