By 
April 16th, 2023
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
The Shenzhou-15 taikonauts onboard the orbiting Chinese Tiangong space station have completed their fourth spacewalk, the China Manned Space Agency said on Sunday.
From inside the country’s space station, Deng Qingming assisted spacewalkers Fei Junlong and Zhang Lu to perform a series of tasks on Saturday, before the two returned to the station’s Wentian lab module.
Image credit: CGTN/Inside Outer Space screengrab
As noted by China’s Xinhua news agency, the trio has carried out extravehicular activities on four occasions since they were launched into space in November 2022, “setting a domestic record for the most spacewalks by a single crew.”
Equipment installed
During the most recent spacewalk, several items of equipment have been installed, including the extravehicular extended pump sets, cross-module cables, and supporting devices for the extravehicular payload platform.
In doing so, subsequent large-scale science and technology experiments outside the space station can be done, the CMSA stated.
Image credit: CGTN/Inside Outer Space screengrab
In related China station news, a Long March-7 Y7 carrier rocket has been transported to the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in south China’s Hainan Province. That booster is set to hurl the uncrewed Tianzhou-6 cargo spacecraft into Earth orbit.
The Tianzhou-6 cargo spacecraft is scheduled to be launched in May, the first flight mission since China entered the stage of space station application and development.
Image credit: Shujianyang Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
On-orbit experiments
China’s Shenzhou-15 mission crew successfully performed the first in-orbit ignition test in the Mengtian space lab module’s combustion cabinet recently, according to the Technology and Engineering Center for Space Utilization (CSU) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The experiment used methane as fuel and the two ignitions lasted about 30 seconds in total.
Stirling thermoelectric converter. Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
The Shenzhou-15 astronauts also completed tests for a free-piston Stirling thermoelectric converter, marking the country’s first successful verification on the use of the technology in orbit.
Also, in-orbit verification experiments using a two-photon microscope have been performed. This device can obtain three-dimensional images of the epidermis and superficial dermis of an astronaut’s skin during a space mission, which provides a new tool for the future research on the in-orbit health monitoring of astronauts, according to China Central Television (CCTV).
The Shenzhou-15 crew is scheduled to return to Earth this June.
Go this video focused on the recent spacewalk at: https://youtu.be/LA4zVvbLkfE
Posted in Space News
