BEIJING: China announced Monday morning the arrival of Shenzhou-18, a Chinese spacecraft carrying three astronauts, at the Dongfeng landing site in the northern Inner Mongolia region at 01:24 AM (Beijing time). According to Kuwait News Agency, Shenzhou-18 separated from the Tiangong space station at 16:12 PM on Sunday evening. Its crew had completed a handover of work tasks with three new astronauts aboard the Shenzhou-19 spacecraft, which departed for space last Wednesday. The Shenzhou-18 mission consisted of three astronauts, Ye Guangfu, Li Cong, and Li Guangsu, who went to the Chinese space station on April 25. They remained in space for 192 days, during which they conducted two spacewalks and completed numerous scientific experiments. The returning crew brought back 55 types of space samples weighing a total of 34.6 kilograms (76 pounds). These samples included results from 28 experiments in space life sciences and space material sciences. China's Tiangong space station operates as a three-person scie ntific laboratory orbiting 450 kilometers above Earth, with its construction completed in late 2022. The Shenzhou-19 crew, now aboard the space station, is scheduled to return to Earth in May 2025. China has successfully sent 24 astronauts into space since 2003 and aims to send astronauts to the moon by 2030.
