Astronaut Wang Yaping became on the night of Sunday to Monday the first Chinese to have carried out a spacewalk.
It aimed to continue the construction of the space station of the Asian giant.
41-year-old air force pilot and colonel Wang Yaping is part of the Shenzhou-13 mission, launched in mid-October.
The crew, also made up of two male astronauts, will stay six months (a record for China) in Tianhe (“Heavenly Harmony”), the only module already in orbit of the three that will eventually constitute the space station.
Their mission is to continue the construction of this station and also to test their capacity to withstand this long stay of half a year in zero gravity, which will put their bodies to the test.
A physics course from space for 60 million students
Alongside General Zhai Zhigang (55), mission commander, Wang Yaping carried out a spacewalk from Sunday to Monday that lasted 6.30 hours, said the space agency in charge of manned flights (CMSA ).
The objective of this outing was to install new elements of an external robotic arm, to ensure the reliability of the equipment or to test new generation space suits.
Jiuquan (China), October 14.
Wang Yaping salutes during a briefing on the eve of going into space.
AFP AFP or licensors
“All the planned tasks have been successfully completed,” CMSA said in a statement.
This third spacewalk aboard Tianhe is the first for the Shenzhou-13 crew.
He is expected to do one, or even two more, in the coming months.
Anything a man can do, a woman can do it.
Wang Yaping, one of China's # Shenzhou13 crew members, successfully completed the extravehicular activities on Sunday evening, becoming the country's first-ever female spacewalker.
Let's review the historic step.
pic.twitter.com/vCU0OjnOz6
- People's Daily, China (@PDChina) November 8, 2021
Wang Yaping had already made a first trip to space in 2013, which made her the second Chinese in space.
Known for having given during her previous stay a live physics lesson to 60 million schoolchildren thanks to a video link, she will repeat the experience during Shenzhou-13.
This mission is the fifth of the eleven (inhabited and uninhabited) that will be needed in total for the construction of the Chinese space station, which should be completed by the end of 2022. Called Tiangong ("Heavenly Palace"), it will be similar in size. at the former Soviet-Russian Mir station (1986-2001).
Its lifespan will be at least 10 years.
