Two Chinese astronauts finished work at Tiangong space station on Sunday morning. This was China's second spacewalk. The Guardian also notes that this was the first time astronauts from China have undertaken an extravehicular activity (EVA) in tandem.Boming Liu, Shenzhou-12's astronaut, left the station on July 3rd at 8:11 ET. He was joined later by Hongbo Tang, his crewmate. To support them, Haisheng Nie (missions commander) remained in the Tianhe Harmony of the Heavens module.While wearing China's next-generation Feitian EVA suits, the astronauts set out to work on the module robotic arm. They were approximately 380 km (236 miles) above Earth's surface the entire time. They will be able to assist in future missions, as China hopes to construct its space station by 2022. The spacewalk took seven hours and was completed by Tang and Liu when they returned to Tianhe around 2:57 AM ET.China's Manned Space Agency stated that the safe return of astronauts Tang Hongbo and Liu Boming to the Tianhe core modules marks the success of our country's first spacewalk.In 2008, Zhigang Zhai made China the third country to successfully complete a spacewalk. The country successfully landed its first ever rover on Mars in the past year and also retrieved soil and rock samples from the Moon. The space agency of the country plans to conduct a second spacewalk after the Shenzhou-12 crew returns home later in 2012.
