China's Shenzhou-17 spacecraft successfully concluded its mission, returning to Earth on April 30, 2024, with its three-member crew – Tang Hongbo, Tang Shengjie, and Jiang Xinlin. The astronauts landed in the Gobi desert's Dongfeng site in Inner Mongolia, marking the end of their six-month stay aboard the country's space station.
Their return came shortly after the Shenzhou-18 mission docked with the station, bringing a new three-member crew to take over. This crew, consisting of Commander Ye Guangfu, Li Cong, and Li Guangsu, will spend the next six months conducting scientific experiments, installing space debris protection equipment, and carrying out educational outreach programs.
China's ambitious space program aims to achieve significant milestones in the coming years, including landing astronauts on the moon by 2030, retrieving samples from Mars, and launching three lunar probe missions. The country also plans to open its space station to foreign astronauts and space tourists, potentially becoming the sole entity maintaining a crewed station in orbit as the International Space Station nears its retirement.
China's space program has made remarkable progress, becoming the third country to independently send a person into space. While the US space program still holds an edge in terms of resources and capabilities, China's achievements, such as retrieving lunar samples and landing a rover on the far side of the moon, demonstrate its growing prowess in space exploration. The US, with the help of private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin, aims to return astronauts to the lunar surface by 2025, further intensifying the competition in space exploration.