Chinese astronauts make history with record-breaking 9-hour spacewalk

China marks historic feat on first extravehicular activity for Shenzhou 19 mission at Tiangong space station

This screengrab shows Shenzhou 19 astronaut Cai Xuzhe conducts a spacewalk outside Chinas Tiangong space station on December 17, 2024. — CMSEO — This screengrab shows Shenzhou 19 astronaut Cai Xuzhe conducts a spacewalk outside China’s Tiangong space station on December 17, 2024. — CMSEO

Chinese astronauts, Cai Xuzhe and Song Lingdong, made history during their recent spacewalk outside the Tiangong space station, spending over nine hours conducting extravehicular activities (EVA).

This mission, which is part of China’s three-person Shenzhou 19 mission, took place from late Monday night into Tuesday morning, according to officials with China’s Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO).

The Chinese astronaut duo surpassed the previous record of eight hours and 56 minutes held by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) astronauts, James Voss and Susan Helms, since March 2001, Space reported.

The successful EVA marks a significant milestone for the Shenzhou 19 mission, which docked with the Tianong station on October 29 and is set for a six-month stay.

In a WeChat update, CMSEO officials said that, during the spacewalk, Cai and Song — along with crewmate Wang Haoze, who remained inside Tiangong — “worked closely together, and with the support of the space station’s robotic arm and ground scientific researchers, completed the installation of the space station’s space debris protection device, the inspection and disposal of extravehicular equipment and facilities, and other tasks.”

“The extravehicular activities were a complete success,” they added, also noting that Song, 34, “became China’s first astronaut born in the 1990s to conduct extravehicular activities.”

According to SpaceNews, the spacewalk began on Monday at 11:51pm EDT, when Cai, the Shenzhou 19 commander, exited Tiangong’s Wentian module. Song followed suit more than 90 minutes later, at 1:32am.

Both astronauts went back inside Wentian at 8:57am on Tuesday, CMSEO officials wrote in the update. Those numbers put the EVA’s duration at nine hours and six minutes, meaning it broke the old record by just 10 minutes.

The record-setting EVA was the 17th overall outside of Tiangong.

The space station’s core module, called Tianhe, reached orbit in April 2021. Two more modules — Wentian and Mengtian — arrived in July 2022 and November 2022, respectively, completing the T-shaped orbital outpost