On Saturday, the crew of Shenzhou-17 conducted its second spacewalk outside the Tiangong Space Station, completing the first maintenance operation for Chinese astronauts.

Commander Tang Hongbo and crew member Colonel Jiang Xinlin floated outside the massive orbital station for nearly 8 hours before returning to the Wentian Science Module at 1:32 pm. The third crew member, Colonel Tang Shengjie, stayed in the Heavenly Palace to provide support.

With the cooperation and assistance of ground control personnel and space station robotic arms, the team completed all assigned tasks.

This is the 15th spacewalk conducted by Chinese astronauts.

During the spacewalk, Tang Hongbo and Jiang repaired components damaged by small space debris on the solar wings of the Tianhe core module. After repair, the solar wing resumed normal operation.

The two also inspected the condition of the external structure of the space station.

This spacewalk is Tang Hongbo's third spacewalk, and he is also the first person to return to the Tiangong Space Station.

Maintenance operations are a very important task for astronauts during their stay on the space station, as repairing damaged components to avoid safety hazards is crucial.

Solar wings are most susceptible to external damage because they are large and thin, making them vulnerable when hit by space debris.

The Shenzhou-17 astronauts are the sixth batch of astronauts on the Tiangong Space Station. They arrived at this huge flying outpost on October 26th to replace their counterparts in the Shenzhou-16 mission.

The crew carried out their first spacewalk on December 21st, completing a series of tasks including testing and maintenance.

They plan to end their space flight at the end of April and hand over the Tiangong space station to the Shenzhou 18 crew before returning to Earth.