Chinese astronauts installed protective panels on the Tiangong space station during a spacewalk that lasted 8.5 hours.. This was already the second exit to the open space for the crew of the Schenzhou-19 mission, which will return to Earth in May 2025, writes Space.

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Chinese astronauts Cai Xuzhe and Song Lingdong made their second spacewalk since arriving at the Tiangong space station in October 2024.. This happened on January 21 and two astronauts were in open space 8 hours 30 minutes.

In December 2024, these same astronauts, as Focus already wrote, set a new world record for the duration of stay in outer space - 9 hours and 6 minutes. Prior to this, the record of staying in open space belonged to NASA astronauts, which in 2001 was outside the spacecraft for 8 hours and 56 minutes.

Chinese astronauts last time installed protective panels on the main module of the Tiangong orbital station, and now they have installed the same protection on the Wentian module.. These protective panels are designed to protect the external equipment of the station from space debris, that is, debris from satellites and space rockets.. Also, these panels can protect the modules of the Tiangong station from micrometeorites..

Now the risk of collisions with space debris has increased greatly due to the fact that there is a lot of such debris in low-Earth orbit due to the increased number of launches into space and the presence in orbit of many inoperative satellites and parts of space rockets. As Focus already wrote, an international group of scientists even turned to the UN so that urgent measures were taken to solve the problem of cosmic garbage in the near -Earth orbit, which threatens not only working companions and orbital stations, as well as the Earth itself.

Chinese scientists have developed special designs and maternity materies for protective panels that will be able to effectively protect the Tiangun station from fragments of cosmic garbage.

Three Chinese astronauts of the Schinzhou-19 mission will return to Earth in May of this year, when they are replaced by the crew of the Schenzhou-20 mission. China also planned to launch another crew to the Tiangong station at the end of 2025 as part of the Shenzhou-21 mission..

We remind you that the Chinese space station " It is planned that it will operate until at least 2032.

In the coming years, China plans to increase the size of the station and thus it can become as large as the International Space Station (ISS).

As Focus already wrote, in 2031 the ISS will be lowered into the atmosphere of the Earth, where it should burn out, although part of its debris will probably fall into the Pacific Ocean..

Focus also wrote that residents of Ukraine will be able to see a solar eclipse in 2025. But this will not be complete, but a partial solar eclipse.