China's spaceship re-docks successfully with space station

ANKARA

China's space cargo ship successfully re-docked with the country's space station after more than a month of independent flight, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said on Tuesday.

"China's cargo spacecraft Tianzhou-5 re-docked with the orbiting @CNSpaceStation combination on Tuesday after a 33-day independent flight," the Chinese Space Station tweeted on its official account.

"At present, the combination is in good condition, and follow-up work will be carried out as planned," it stated.

Tianzhou-5 cargo spacecraft successfully re-docked with the China Space Station at 5:10 a.m. on Tuesday (1910GMT Monday), China’s broadcaster CGTN reported, citing a CMSA statement.

On Nov. 12, 2022, Beijing launched the cargo ship from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in the southern province of Hainan, which completed a fast automated rendezvous and docking with the space station.

The cargo spacecraft had earlier separated from the orbiting combination of the space station on May 5 to make room for its successor, the Tianzhou-6, and temporarily switched to independent flight mode. It had been in orbit independently for 33 days before the re-docking, according to the report.

It carried six months' worth of supplies for the Shenzhou-15 crew, including propellant, science facilities, a cube satellite, hydrogen fuel cells, and experiment payloads, which returned to Earth on Sunday.

*Writing by Islamuddin Sajid