Shenzhou 16


Shenzhou 16 was a Chinese spaceflight to the Tiangong space station, launched on 30 May 2023. It carried two People's Liberation Army Astronaut Corps taikonauts and a payload specialist from Beihang University on board a Shenzhou spacecraft. The mission was the eleventh crewed Chinese spaceflight and the sixteenth flight overall of the Shenzhou program.

Background

Shenzhou 16 was the fifth spaceflight to the Tiangong space station, with a mission duration of approximately five months.
The spacecraft completed construction and testing in December 2022, and prior to launch was maintained in a state of near-readiness if needed as a lifeboat for the Shenzhou 15 crew.

Mission

The flight launched from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on 30 May 2023 at 9:31 AM China Standard Time, following the launch of the Tianzhou 6 cargo spacecraft and near the end of the Shenzhou 15 mission. Just under 7 hours after launch, the spacecraft docked with the Tianhe core module's nadir docking port.
Upon entering the station, the crew were greeted by and performed a handover ceremony with the crew of Shenzhou 15, with whom they would share a four-day mission overlap prior to the previous crew's departure on June 3.

Spacewalk

On 20 July 2023, the first scheduled spacewalk of Shenzhou 16 was carried out by Jing Haipeng and Zhu Yangzhu through the airlock of the Wentian lab module, with Gui Haichao assisting the pair from inside the Tianhe core module. The crew completed a variety of tasks, including the installation and lifting of the support frame for a panoramic camera outside Tiangong's Tianhe core module and unlocking and lifting two panoramic cameras outside the Mengtian experiment module. The spacewalk lasted for 7 hours and 55 minutes, beating the previous EVA duration record of 7 hours and 6 minutes on Shenzhou 15.

Return

Shenzhou 16 returned to Earth on October 30, 2023, landing at the Dongfeng landing site in the Gobi Desert in Inner Mongolia. Footage of the landing showed an apparent hole in the descent parachute and the capsule tumbling on impact, but the crew was unharmed.

Crew

Shenzhou 16 marked Commander Jing Haipeng's fourth trip to space, a new record for a Chinese taikonaut. Payload specialist Gui Haichao, a professor at Beihang University, became the first Chinese civilian in space. Gui Haichao and Zhu Yangzhu were also the first members of Chinese Group 3 to fly to space.