• First spacewalk of the six-month Shenzhou-14 mission.
• The space station, dubbed the “heavenly palace.”
• The first returning to Earth in April after 183 days.

The national human spaceflight agency reported that two astronauts on China’s Tiangong space station successfully completed a six-hour spacewalk on Friday.

The China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said that astronauts Chen Dong and Liu Yang returned to their cabin module in the early hours of Friday, declaring the first spacewalk of the six-month Shenzhou-14 mission a “perfect success.”

China’s extensively publicized space programmed has already resulted in the country landing a rover on Mars and sending probes to the Moon.

Images from state media showed the pair opening the door of the module and manoeuvring equipment with a robotic arm against the rotating earth in the background.

“Hello, everyone. I’m out of the module. I’m feeling good,” In a video, Chen, a former military pilot, stated.

On June 5, China launched the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft, carrying three astronauts to the completion of Tiangong’s construction.

The space station, dubbed the “heavenly palace,” is planned to be completely operational by the end of the year.

Chen, Liu, and Cai are the second crew to spend six months aboard Tiangong, with the first returning to Earth in April after 183 days on the space station.

Tiangong’s core module was sent into orbit early last year and is anticipated to endure at least a decade.

The finished station will resemble the Soviet Mir station, which orbited Earth from the 1980s to 2001.

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