Three Chinese astronauts are temporarily stranded in space after their return capsule was struck by suspected orbital debris, China’s human spaceflight agency said on Wednesday.
Wang Jie, Chen Zhongrui, and Chen Dong, the astronauts part of the Shenzhou-20 mission, were launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northwest China in April. They reached the Tiangong space station in six hours, with their return journey initially scheduled for 5 November.
The Shenzhou mission cycles crews of three Chinese astronauts to and from the Tiangong space station for six-month stays, during which they perform a range of tasks, including repairing damage to the orbiting outpost.
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However, a suspected impact from a small piece of space debris on the Shenzhou 20 spacecraft has called off their scheduled departure.
Their replacement crew, launched on 31 October from Earth, has already reached the orbiting outpost, and the two teams currently remain aboard Tiangong with impact analysis and risk assessment currently underway.
“The Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft is suspected to have been struck by a small piece of orbital debris, and assessment of the impact and associated risks is currently under way.
“To ensure the safety and health of the astronauts and the success of the mission, it has been decided that the Shenzhou-20 return mission, originally scheduled for 5 November, will be postponed,” the space agency announced.
China’s space agency hasn’t revealed whether the Shenzhou-20 spacecraft was hit by debris mid-flight or while it was docked onto Tiangong.
Existing protocols suggest that if Shenzhou-20 remains unrepairable, the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft would be used to transport the stranded crew back to Earth.
A backup Shenzhou spacecraft would be sent if both the space vehicles are found to be damaged.
The latest incident reveals the danger posed by increasing amounts of space junk, which consists of discarded spacecraft parts, to crewed space missions.
A growing number of studies and international space organisations have warned of the dangers of collision posed by such debris floating around in space hundreds of miles above the Earth.
Last year debris from an exploded Russian satellite forced astronauts aboard the International Space Station to seek shelter.
Over 180 fragments from the satellite explosion crowded the already densely packed section of space above the Earth occupied by thousands of other spacecraft.
An estimate by the US Space Surveillance Network suggests there could be over 200,000 objects between 1-10 centimetres and tens of thousands of objects larger than 10cm in this section of space crowded by satellites and their debris.
The United Nations cautioned last year that urgent action was needed to track orbital debris, and to create an international framework to manage them.
