The Eastern Wind Returns, Crowned in Morning Glow; Shenzhou Comes Home Draped in Glory — Written on the Triumphant Return of the Shenzhou-21 Crew
The Eastern Wind Returns, Crowned in Morning Glow; Shenzhou Comes Home Draped in Glory — Written on the Triumphant Return of the Shenzhou-21 Crew
At 20:11 on May 29, 2026, the Shenzhou-21 crew safely returned to the Dongfeng Landing Site aboard the Shenzhou-22 crewed spacecraft.
Inside the capsule were astronauts Zhang Lu, Wu Fei, and Zhang Hongzhang, who had been away from Earth for nearly seven months. They broke the record for the longest in-orbit stay by a Chinese astronaut crew.
Outside the capsule were the roar of helicopters, the crackle of walkie-talkie dispatches, the click of camera shutters, and the sound of footsteps drawing ever closer.
"After we take the spacecraft away, if any danger arises, there will be no spacecraft for you to return in."
This exchange took place between Chen Dong, commander of the Shenzhou-20 crew, and Zhang Lu, commander of the Shenzhou-21 crew.
Because hairline cracks appeared in the porthole glass of the Shenzhou-20 reentry capsule — rendering it unfit for crewed safe return — the Shenzhou-20 crew "transferred" to the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft and returned to Earth on November 14, 2025.
Before the Shenzhou-20 crew's return, all six astronauts lived and worked together aboard the space station for nearly half a month. After seeing their colleagues depart, the Shenzhou-21 crew on January 19, 2026, sent the Shenzhou-20 spacecraft off as it undocked from the space station.
Behind this composure lies the confidence and assurance of China's crewed spaceflight program. Beginning with the Shenzhou-12 mission, crewed spacecraft launches have adopted a rolling backup mode of "launch one, hold one in reserve," allowing the backup rocket and spacecraft to transition rapidly from standby to launch-ready status.
Space food, space medicine, and fresh fruits and vegetables — this "Shenzhou" arrived laden with cargo, providing the material foundation for the crew's extended in-orbit stay. The 210-day in-orbit stay set the record for the longest stay by a Chinese astronaut crew.
Confronting danger, building safety. Every extravehicular activity in space involves multiple challenges. During the mission, the Shenzhou-21 crew completed the installation of space debris protection devices and inspection of extravehicular facilities and equipment. Zhang Lu completed a cumulative total of seven extravehicular activities, making him the Chinese astronaut who has performed the most extravehicular missions.
Exploring outward, reflecting inward. The universe is vast and holds infinite mysteries. China conducted its first mammalian space science experiment aboard the space station, using four mice to further understand the effects of the space environment on life. A space experiment involving human "artificial embryos" was a world first, bearing on the future survival and reproduction of humanity in space.
The core module of China's space station has now been in orbit for five years. In the future, China's "space home" will be expanded, transitioning from its current "T"-shaped configuration to a "cross"-shaped configuration.
Flying into the heavens is a dream humanity has sung of for a thousand years. Because the destination is far, we absolutely will not stop at reaching the heavens — absolutely will not stop at the far shore of the dream.
Walk into the desert and scoop up a handful of sand, and you will find dull ochre-red and dark greenish-black alongside warm waxy-yellow and milky-white. Ancient life settled into rock, then after tens of millions of years of weathering and fragmentation, became the kaleidoscopic Badain Jaran Desert.
China's only crewed spaceflight launch site, as well as the Shenzhou spacecraft's reentry landing site, are built on this vast and sparsely populated desert and Gobi.
In 1958, to establish the predecessor of the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center — the People's Republic of China's first comprehensive missile test range — a survey team selected a site in Ejina Banner, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The people of all ethnicities in Ejina Banner asked for nothing in return: they dismantled their yurts, drove away their livestock, and left the pastures where they had lived for generations to the cause of spaceflight.
Today, whenever a Shenzhou spacecraft returns, a commemorative plaque adorned with a blue hada is erected nearby. In Mongolian culture, the blue hada represents a reverence as deep and eternal as the sky.
The search, rescue, and recovery mission for the Shenzhou-21 crew's return marked the tenth time the Dongfeng Landing Site has welcomed home heroes of the heavens.
From Shenzhou-1 through Shenzhou-11, reentry capsules all landed in Siziwang Banner, Inner Mongolia. After entering the space station phase, the Siziwang Banner landing site was decommissioned, and the Dongfeng Landing Site became the sole overland landing site for crewed spaceflight.
Over the past five years, the Dongfeng Landing Site has experienced numerous "firsts" across missions: its inaugural use during Shenzhou-12, the first rapid return during Shenzhou-13, the first winter nighttime return during Shenzhou-14, and others. Each time, it has successfully ensured the safe egress of astronauts, with significant improvements in rapid response capability, search-and-rescue capability in complex terrain, support capability in extreme environments, and unmanned search-and-rescue technology.
The warm and powerful embrace of the open wilderness has always been open to the sky, awaiting the return of heroes from distant expeditions. Among those heroes, some come from the grasslands.
When the Shenzhou-20 and Shenzhou-21 crews held their "rendezvous in space," Wang Jie and Wu Fei clasped hands tightly — two astronauts from Inner Mongolia had met aboard the space station.
From approximately 400 kilometers above, they looked down at their homeland, seeing the "ji-character bend" (几字弯) of the Yellow River winding through the vast grasslands, the Yin Mountains cradling the Hetao Plain, and Wuliangsuhai gleaming like a sapphire set into the boundless wilderness.
The selection, survey, and evolution of landing sites mirrors the vigorous development of China's crewed spaceflight program. In February of this year, China successfully organized and carried out a low-altitude demonstration and verification test of the Long March-10 launch vehicle system and a maximum dynamic pressure abort flight test of the Mengzhou crewed spacecraft system at Wenchang, Hainan. In this test, the rocket's first-stage booster and the spacecraft's reentry capsule each splashed down safely in designated sea areas under controlled conditions, rather than landing on the ground. China's crewed lunar exploration program has achieved an important phased breakthrough.
The day before returning to Earth, the Shenzhou-21 crew handed over the space station keys to the Shenzhou-23 crew.
Both crews include all three types of astronauts: spacecraft pilots, spaceflight engineers, and payload specialists. The Shenzhou-21 crew spans astronauts born in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, while the Shenzhou-23 crew is composed of astronauts from the third and fourth cohorts.
Because the Shenzhou-22 crewed spacecraft launched in an emergency in an uncrewed configuration, the Shenzhou-22 astronaut crew will remain permanently vacant in the sequence.
As the first spacecraft of a new batch of Shenzhou vehicles, the Shenzhou-22 spacecraft features upgrades in multiple areas including its instrument systems, payload installation space, and components, and is also a "fast-out, fast-back" crewed spacecraft.
After launching into orbit on November 25, 2025, the spacecraft completed autonomous rapid rendezvous and docking with the space station combination, taking only approximately 3.5 hours.
"The spacecraft uses a 3-orbit rapid return scheme, entering the return procedure after approximately 4.5 hours of independent flight, with the entire return and landing process taking approximately 50 minutes," said Mao Yongjun of the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.
After undocking from the space station, the spacecraft must orbit Earth several times before selecting the right moment to reenter the atmosphere and return. From 11 orbits during Shenzhou-12, to 5 orbits during Shenzhou-13, to the current 3 orbits, the astronauts' journey home has grown faster.
Ground teams raced across the western zone of the landing site; newly built asphalt roads greatly improved mobility efficiency. "The third landing point forecast has been communicated — we'll be able to see the reentry capsule any moment now," said Chen Guodong of the ground team.
Across the immense expanse of the Gobi, the communications team wove a vast net using a new-generation private wireless communications network signal, with command audio and landing-point imagery flowing at high speed between the command hub and each sub-team.
"The private network's configuration is highly flexible and can move with the search-and-rescue teams, filling in signal dead zones across the Gobi," said Long Kunming of the communications team.
Hatch opener Su Liming inserted the handle into the lock, rotated it 140 degrees counterclockwise, and slowly opened the hatch door. The scent of nature, absent for nearly seven months, drifted into the reentry capsule.
Fu Yuanhua of the China Astronaut Research and Training Center explained that, given the nearly seven-month in-orbit stay, on-site medical monitoring and support personnel would assist the astronauts in readapting to gravity, with particular attention to protecting the lower back and legs, and with lumbar support belts provided to prevent injuries caused by reduced bone and muscle endurance.
"This operation spanned day and night," said Mao Yongjun. To ensure clear visibility at the landing site, illumination drones were deployed at night. Tethered drones carrying high-power LED light arrays hovered in midair, radiating light into the darkness.