Third batch of experimental samples from China's Space Station arrives in Beijing

BEIJING - The third batch of space scientific experimental samples from China's Tiangong space station arrived in Beijing on Monday after the return of the Shenzhou 14 crew.

The experimental samples include three cold packs of rice and Arabidopsis, a bag with four boxes of container-free materials. They were delivered to the Technology and Engineering Center for Space Utilization under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The seeds for the two plant samples underwent a 120 day cultivation process in Tiangong. The scientists will analyze the effects of microgravity in space on the samples, according to the academy.

The experiment cabinet for container-free materials in the station's Tianhe core module is China's first and the world's second of its kind used in space. It has been working in space for more than 590 days, completing in-orbit experiments on seven boxes of materials.

The researchers have obtained a large amount of data through the in-orbit experiments, which will help them increase the research on developing new materials on Earth, the academy said.

After completing a six-month space station mission, the return capsule of the Shenzhou 14 manned spaceship carrying taikonauts Chen Dong, Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe touched down on Sunday at the Dongfeng landing site in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.