Chinese astronaut conducts record-tying 6th spacewalk outside Tiangong space station (video)

A pair of Chinese astronauts ventured outside the Tiangong space station on Monday (March 16) — and one of them made some history.

Shenzhou 21 commander Zhang Lu and colleague Wu Fei worked for around seven hours outside Tiangong and completed their tasks at 7:25 a.m. EDT on March 16 (1125 GMT; 7:35 p.m. Beijing Time), according to China’s human spaceflight agency.

Zhang and Wu, wearing Feitian spacesuits, carried out a number of tasks, including installing debris shielding to the exterior of the three-module outpost, before returning to the airlock of the Wentian experiment module. Astronaut Zhang Hongzhang supported the extravehicular activity (EVA) from inside the station, while teams on the ground and Tiangong’s robotic arm assisted operations.

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It was the pair’s second EVA, or spacewalk, during the Shenzhou 21 mission. It followed a first EVA in December 2025, during which Zhang and Wu inspected a crack in the viewport window of the Shenzhou 20 spacecraft. The Shenzhou 20 crew had already returned home in the Shenzhou 21 capsule due to the suspected debris damage to their own Shenzhou 20 spacecraft.

The EVA brings Zhang’s career total to six, tying him with Chen Dong for the most spacewalks by a Chinese astronaut. The 49-year-old Zhang made his first trip to space on Shenzhou 15 in late 2022 and participated in four spacewalks during that 186-day-long mission. Chen Dong performed three EVAs on Shenzhou 14 in 2022 and three more on the recent Shenzhou 20 mission.

The overall record for most spacewalks is held by cosmonaut Anatoly Solovyev. He performed 16 of them during his spaceflight career, which ran from 1988 to 1999. Former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson holds the American record with 10.

China aims to keep Tiangong permanently occupied for at least a decade. It plans to launch the Shenzhou 23 and Shenzhou 24 crewed missions to the space station this year, along with a Tianzhou cargo spacecraft. The uncrewed Shenzhou 22 spacecraft was launched to the orbital outpost late last year to provide a lifeboat for the Shenzhou 21 crew due to the Shenzhou 20 crisis.

China’s next-generation Mengzhou crew capsule could also make a first visit to Tiangong this year, following the success of a major test in February.