Shenzhou-17 crew ready for second spacewalk

The Shenzhou-17 crew members on board China’s orbiting Tiangong space station have completed all preparatory work and drills for their second extravehicular mission, scheduled in the next few days, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) announced on Friday.

The Shenzhou-17 crew is in good health, and the space station combination is running stably, said the CMSA. During their first extravehicular mission on Dec. 21, 2023, the crew took about 7.5 hours to complete a repair test on the Tianhe module’s solar wing, assisted by the space station’s robotic arm and coordinated by the mission control team back on earth.

Since then, the astronauts have completed their robotic arm operations training, system-wide pressure emergency drills, payload extravehicular transfer, experiment cabinet debugging and preparatory work for the second spacewalk.