Science the winner as Chinese astronauts spacewalk to record
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. A screen image captured at Beijing Aerospace Control Centre shows Shenzhou-19 astronaut Cai Xuzhe performing extravehicular activities outside China's orbiting space station. Photo: Xinhua
The latest Chinese spacewalkers installed space protection devices and carried out maintenance outside Tiangong.
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