Chinese astronauts return to Earth after six months on space station

Heroes’ welcome: Workers opening up the capsule of the ‘Shenzhou-17’ manned spaceship after it landed at the Dongfeng landing site; The other astronauts on the successful mission were Tang Shengjie and Jiang. — Xinhua via AP

A Chinese spacecraft returned to Earth on Tuesday with three astronauts who completed a six-month mission aboard the country’s orbiting space station.

The Shenzhou-17 craft carrying Tang Hongbo, Tang Shengjie and Jiang Xinlin landed at the Dongfeng site in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in the Gobi Desert shortly before 6pm.