Chinese Astronauts Install Debris Protection on Space Station

By Eduardo Baptista BEIJING, Dec 10 (Reuters) – Chinese astronauts have installed protection against ‘space junk’ aboard the permanently inhabited station Tiangong, according to China’s manned spaceflight authorities, a month after a docked vessel was damaged for the first time. Early last month, a tiny piece of debris travelling at high velocity cracked the window of the Shenzhou-20 spacecraft’s return capsule, right before the vessel was set to leave Tiangong carrying a trio of Chinese astronauts back to Earth. The damage was deemed severe enough that China’s space authorities made the unprecedented decision to delay the return and then send the crew back on the only other available vessel, the Shenzhou-21, which triggered the country’s first emergency launch mission as the Shenzhou-21 crew was left without a flightworthy vessel for 11 days.