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The Shenzhou 21 astronaut mission will launch to the Chinese Tiangong space station on October 31, 2025. | 1 credit
If an emergency arose aboard China's Tiangong space station in the next few days, its three astronauts could find themselves in trouble.
This trio – members of the Shenzhou 21 mission – arrived in Tiangong October 31 for a six-month stay. But their planned trip home had already taken place. On Thursday evening (November 13), the Shenzhou 21 spacecraft carried three different astronauts away from the station are members of the Shenzhou 20 mission, whose own car was declared unsuitable for transporting people to Earth after damaged by space debris impact.
Thus, the Shenzhou 21 astronauts are currently living on Tiangong without a reliable lifeboat. The good news is that this somewhat risky situation should be very temporary.
China keeps the Long March 2F rocket and Shenzhou spacecraft “close to readiness” at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center as a policy during crewed flights because Andrew Jones of SpaceNews noted. If something goes wrong at Tiangong, a backup lifeboat can be launched to the station in just 8.5 days.
That countdown has likely already begun for the Shenzhou 21 crew, as not having a safe trip home certainly qualifies as an emergency.
Indeed, Chinese space officials already said that the Shenzhou 22 spacecraft will be launched into Tiangong (presumably without people on board). They didn't give a timeline, saying only that the launch would happen “at an appropriate time in the future.”
But it's safe to assume that launch day is near; the country certainly doesn't want to expose its astronauts to more risk than necessary, and every day spent in orbit without a lifeboat is a risk.
The plight of the Shenzhou 21 astronauts is reminiscent of the experiences of NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams when they arrived on Earth. International Space Station (ISS) in June 2024 on Boeing's first-ever crewed mission. Starliner capsule.
Starliner suffered a helium leak and engine problems on the way up, and NASA eventually decided to return the spacecraft to Earth without a crew. It happened without incident in September 2024.
Meanwhile, Wilmore and Williams continued to live on the ISS until March last year, turning a planned 10-day mission into almost nine month affair. Eventually they came home on the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule along with fellow NASA astronaut Nick Haig and cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov.
But the Shenzhou 21 astronauts are now in a more dangerous position than Wilmore and Williams ever were. During NASA astronauts' time in orbit, there were always non-Starliner lifeboats docked to the ISS, and they could squeezed into one of these ships for the tight journey home if something went wrong on the ISS.
That doesn't seem to be an option for Tiangong's current residents: the Shenzhou 20 spacecraft, the only crewed ship currently docked at the station, has tiny cracks in one of its windows due to impact from debris.
“The Shenzhou 20 spacecraft does not meet the requirements for the safe return of astronauts and will remain in orbit to continue related experiments,” state news agency Xinhua reported. reported on Thursdaywith reference to information from the China Manned Space Agency.
Shenzhou 21 is the 10th crewed mission to Tiangong, a three-module station that weighs about 20% less than the ISS.
The mission includes 48-year-old commander Zhang Lu, who also flew Shenzhou 15 in 2022, as well as two spaceflight newcomers Zhang Hongzhang and Wu Fei. Wu has the honor of being the youngest member of China's astronaut corps.
