Editorial | Science the winner as Chinese astronauts spacewalk to record
Hi-tech advances in spacesuits resulting from previous missions helped make the nine-hour feat possible
Space remains the new frontier, but the achievements of many men and women there tend to be incremental – even if significant enhancements of previous deeds. But because they push the boundaries they can be important landmarks of space exploration.
One such example is to be found in the latest news from the orbiting space station Tiangong of a world record spacewalk by two Chinese astronauts.
Cai Xuzhe and Song Lingdong, members of the Shenzhou-19 mission to the space station, had completed a nine-hour extravehicular activity (EVA), the China Manned Space Agency said.
For the record, that beats the previous longest EVA, eight hours and 56 minutes, set by Americans James Voss and Susan Helms during a mission to the International Space Station in 2001 – by just four minutes. The previous longest Chinese EVA was eight hours 23 minutes by Shenzhou-18 astronauts Ye Guangfu and Li Guangsu outside Tiangong earlier this year, 16 years after the initial 20-minute spacewalk outside Shenzhou-7.
The latest Chinese spacewalkers installed space protection devices and carried out maintenance outside Tiangong.
