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BEIJING (AP) — Three Chinese astronauts stranded at their nation’s space station after their spacecraft was apparently hit by space debris departed for home Friday using the craft that had brought a replacement crew, China’s space agency said.
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The astronauts were on a six-month rotation at the space station and originally scheduled to return Nov. 5, four days after the new crew arrived.
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Their return was delayed for more than a week. China’s Manned Space Engineering Office said there were minor cracks in a window of the return capsule of the Shenzhou-20 spacecraft, most likely caused by impact from space debris.
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There are millions of pieces of mostly tiny debris circling the Earth at speeds faster than a bullet flies. They can come from launches and collisions and pose a risk to satellites, space stations and the astronauts who operate outside them.
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The three Chinese astronauts — Chen Dong, Chen Zhongrui and Wang Jie — were coming back on the Shenzhou-21 craft, the Manned Space Engineering office said.
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The Shenzhou-20 will remain in orbit, it said.
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The crew, which had traveled to the Tiangong space station in April, was ” in good condition, working and living normally,” the engineering office said earlier this week.
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China’s space program has made steady progress since 2003. It has built its own space station and has a goal of landing a person on the moon by 2030.
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The latest Shenzhou-21 mission brought four mice to the space station to study how they would be affected by weightlessness and confinement.
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