China Scrambles To Rescue Astronauts Stranded By Space Debris Crash
Having successfully completed a six-month rotation aboard the Tiangong space station, the trio were fully prepared for undocking when China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) mission control detected small space debris had struck the crew's spacecraft. While the astronauts themselves were reported to be in "good condition" and safely housed within their orbital module, teams on the ground were already busy carrying out tests and drills at the landing site in Inner Mongolia.
Having a total of six people onboard Tiangong also could mean logistics and supplies could be strained, especially if the unmanned Shenzhou-22 rescue/return mission is postponed indefinitely. The Chinese space agency has likewise confirmed that the Tiangong station is in "normal" condition and is perfectly capable of safely supporting both sets of astronauts.
This incident is a fresh example of the space junk crisis that global agencies have warned about for years. Millions of pieces of used rockets, dead satellites, and orbital detritus, accumulated since the dawn of the Space Age of the 1950s, have created a minefield surrounding the planet.
This incident also directly confronts the world with the reality of the Kessler Syndrome, a theoretical scenario whereby the density of objects in low Earth orbit becomes so high that collisions generate enough debris to cascade into more collisions, effectively making LEO unusable. While space-faring nations have made gestures toward remediation, this stranding shows that solutions need to happen ASAP.
Shenzhou-21 is China's 16th manned spaceflight carrying three astronauts (a.k.a. taikonauts), namely veteran Zhang Lu (48), Wu Fei (32), and Zhang Hongzhang (39). The crew lifted off on October 31 last year with a payload of six experimental samples and four black mice (wait, isn't that bad luck?). The latter was for tests related to reproduction in LEO.
