Chinese taikonauts complete spacewalk, all tasks

Chinese taikonauts Chen Dong and Liu Yang have completed a spacewalk to carry out work outside the National Orbital Station of the People's Republic of China "Tiangong", having completed all the tasks.

The statement came from the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA), Interfax reports.

"Chen Dong and Liu Yang returned to the module on September 2 at 00:33 Beijing time, six hours after the start of work in the framework of extravehicular activity," CMSA said in a statement.

The taikonauts left the airlock compartment of the Wentian module to carry out installation work outside the station at 19:09 Beijing time. For the first time, the airlock compartment of the new experimental module was used to carry out the extravehicular activity (VCD), previously only the base module "Tianhe" was used to carry out VCD.

During their stay outside the station, Chen Dong and Liu Yang completed all the tasks set – they installed a pump outside the experimental module "Wentian", raised a panoramic camera on it, placed a platform for installation work and conducted a number of tests related to emergency response while working in orbit.

"The spacewalk was recognised as completely successful," the CMSA concluded.