The Long March-2F Y13 carrier rocket, carrying the Shenzhou-13 crewed spaceship, blasted off from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center at 00:23 (Beijing Time) of Oct.16, 2021.

About 582 seconds later, Shenzhou-13 spaceship successfully separated from the rocket and entered the preset orbit, sending astronauts Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping and Ye Guangfu into space. The Shenzhou-13 crew is in good condition and the launch is a complete success.

 

It is China's twenty-first flight mission since the launch of the manned space program, and also the second crewed mission in the construction stage of the space station. After entering orbit, the spaceship will conduct a fast autonomous rendezvous and docking with the combination of Tianhe core module, Tianzhou-2 and Tianzhou-3 as planned. The astronauts will be stationed in Tianhe core module and stay in orbit for six months, carry out tasks such as mechanical arm operation, extravehicular activities and modules transfer, to further verify a series of key technologies such as long-term residence in space, recycling of resources and life support for astronauts.

 

Shenzhou-13 manned spaceship successfully completed orbital status setting after entering the orbit and conducted a fast autonomous rendezvous and docking with the nadir port of Tianhe core module at 06:56 (Beijing Time) on Oct. 16, 2021. They will form a four-module/ship combination with the Tianzhou-2 and Tianzhou-3 cargo spacecraft, which had docked with Tianhe earlier. The whole process took approximately 6.5 hours.

 

After a series of preparations as planned,Zhai Zhigang opened the hatch of the Tianhe core module. Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping and Ye Guangfu successively entered Tianhe core module at 9:58 (Beijing Time) on Oct. 16, 2021. 

 

Shenzhou-13 crew successfully opened the hatch of the cargo module and entered Tianzhou-3 cargo spacecraft at 9:50 (Beijing Time) on Oct. 17, 2021.

 

By close collaboration, the Shenzhou-13 crew completed all extravehicular tasks after 6.5 hours of extravehicular activities (EVAs) at 1:16 am (Beijing Time), November 8, 2021. Astronauts Zhai Zhigang and Wang Yaping returned safely to the space station core module Tianhe. The first EVAs of Shenzhou-13 was a complete success.

 

The first "Tiangong Class" began at 3:40 pm (Beijing Time) on December 9, 2021, with Chinese astronauts teaching in space again after 8 years. "Teachers in space" Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping and Ye Guangfu gave a wonderful space science popularization class to teenagers, which was the Tiangong Class in China Space Station.

 

At 00:55 am (Beijing Time), December 27, 2021, the Shenzhou-13 crew completed all tasks of the second EVAs successfully after around 6 hours. Astronauts Zhai Zhigang and Ye Guangfu safely returned to the core module Tianhe, marking the complete success of the second EVAs.

 

At 7:55 am (Beijing Time) on January 8, 2022, under the close coordination of the ground scientific and technological personnel, the Shenzhou-13 crew spent about two hours in successfully completing the rendezvous and docking test of Tianzhou-2 cargo spacecraft and the space station assembly by hand-controlled teleoperation in the space station core module.

 

At 09:56 am (Beijing Time) on April 16, 2022, the re-entry module of Shenzhou-13 manned spacecraft landed successfully at Dongfeng Landing Site. The medical monitoring and support personnel on site confirmed that astronauts Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping and Ye Guangfu were in good health. Shenzhou-13  manned flight mission marked a complete success.