"Feel good" sounded again in space, and the Shenzhou 13 crew successfully completed the second exit

On December 26, the Shenzhou 13 astronaut Ye Guangfu was photographed at the Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Center. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Guo Zhongzheng

According to the China Manned Space Engineering Office, at 0:55 today, after about 6 hours, the Shenzhou 13 astronaut crew successfully completed all the tasks set for the second time, and astronauts Zhai Zhigang and Ye Guangfu returned safely to the Tianhe core module, and the outgoing activities were a complete success. The "Feel Good" crew is about to welcome the New Year in space.

The Shenzhou 13 astronaut crew has been working and living in orbit for more than 70 days, and has completed its first outgoing activity on November 7, because the process of exiting the capsule is smooth and successful, and the three astronauts also have a new nickname - "feel good" crew.

"I'm 03 and I feel good the next time I go out!" When the first outgoing activity, Ye Guangfu's task was to cooperate with and support Zhai Zhigang and Wang Yaping in the cabin to carry out extravehicular operations. At that time, he made a "preview" of this outgoing activity.

Yesterday, it was the second outgoing activity of the "feel good" crew while in orbit. The Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Center was brightly lit, and Zhai Zhigang and Ye Guangfu were dressed in the "Feitian" extravehicular spacesuit developed by China and waited quietly in the node cabin. After receiving the exit instructions from the ground control center, at 18:50, astronaut Ye Guangfu opened the hatch and took the lead in leaving the cabin, successfully completing a series of operations on the robotic arm.

As the robotic arm moved to the designated position, at 19:37, Zhai Zhigang fastened the safety rope and skillfully completed the exit action. He calmly waved to the camera, "I am 01, I am out of the cabin, feel good", and waved to Ye Guangfu, and the aerospace scientists on the ground gave applause.

This sentence is already the third time Zhai Zhigang has spoken in space.

In 2008, astronauts Zhai Zhigang, Liu Boming and Jing Haipeng carried out the Shenzhou 7 manned spaceflight mission, and Zhai Zhigang successfully completed China's first spacewalk out of the cabin, bringing the footprints of Chinese to the vast space for the first time. More than a month ago, on November 7, Zhai Zhigang and Wang Yaping successfully exited the cabin from the Tianhe core module node module, which was Zhai Zhigang's second mission after a gap of 13 years. The third mission came faster, and Zhai Zhigang became the Chinese astronaut with the most departures.

This is the fourth time that Chinese astronauts have left the capsule during the space station stage. During the extravehicular activities, the installation of the extravehicular operation point foot limiter and related ergonomic verification, carrying transfer verification and other tasks were completed, and the functional performance of the core cabin airlock compartment, extravehicular suit and mechanical arm was further verified, and the relevant technologies of the out-of-cabin activity, the coordination of astronauts inside and outside the cabin and the coordination ability of heaven and earth were further evaluated, and the experience was further accumulated for the follow-up out of the cabin activities.

Zhai Zhigang and Ye Guangfu moved steadily throughout the whole process, lifting heavy weights like light weights. But in fact, they are always facing various threats from space, vacuum, weightless environment, ultra-low temperature, ubiquitous cosmic rays... The new generation of "flying" spacesuits is their most solid barrier.

After about 6 hours of extravehicular work, Zhai Zhigang and Ye Guangfu returned to the Chinese space station one after another. Before entering the cabin, they praised the hard work of all the scientific and technological personnel, and the ground also thanked the three astronauts for their efforts.

"Congratulations to 01 people for their third departure and 03 for their first successful departure, welcome back to the Chinese space station!" Wang Yaping said.

Subsequently, the Shenzhou 13 astronaut crew will be put into the next stage of the on-orbit work mission to welcome the arrival of the new year in a "feel good" state.

Throughout the outgoing activity, the sound and image transmission between heaven and earth is stable. Shan Changsheng, chief engineer of Beijing Space Information Transmission Center, introduced that the center called The Tianlian-2 01 star and the Tianlian-1 03 and 04 satellites to jointly provide space-based measurement and control support for the Chinese space station assembly, especially the use of the unique multi-access antenna of the Tianlian-2 01 satellite to fill the measurement and control gap, and continue to establish a two-way transmission link of video, voice and other data between the space station and the ground control center to ensure that the ground controls the astronauts' out-of-cabin activities in real time.

China's Manned Space Engineering Office said that the implementation of extravehicular operations is becoming the norm for missions in the space station phase. In the future, Chinese astronauts will carry out more and more complex outgoing activities to provide strong support for the smooth completion of the construction and stable operation of the space station.

Tianhe Robotic Arm: Lift the astronaut again

When Zhai Zhigang and Ye Guangfu left the cabin to work, Wang Yaping in the cabin was fully engrossed in cooperating with the ground to control the mechanical arm, and in this outgoing activity, the mechanical arm control action was intensive. The space station core capsule robot arm is developed by the five academies of the Aerospace Science and Technology Group, and this "big guy" has three "most": it is the space intelligent mechanical system with the highest complexity, the largest scale and the highest control accuracy among similar aerospace products.

More than a month ago, when Shenzhou 13 astronauts Zhai Zhigang and Wang Yaping first came out of the capsule, the mechanical arm successfully carried out actions such as lifting the astronaut and lifting the position of the panoramic camera, and demonstrated the large-scale transfer ability of "crawling" on the surface of the module.

In this outgoing activity, an important task of the robotic arm is to assist the astronauts to lift the out-of-cabin panoramic camera C. Hu Chengwei, head of the space station system robotic arm technology of the Fifth Academy of Aerospace Science and Technology Group, introduced that the position of the camera that needs to be lifted this time is relatively special, the robotic arm should avoid the extravehicular equipment, and the movement needs to be more stable and precise, and the safety and control accuracy requirements are very high, and a little attention may occur to the collision danger.

In order to successfully complete the task of assisting astronauts out of the capsule, the robotic arm development team carried out a lot of simulation work with the space station system, carried out a number of flight program deductions and 1:1 simulation exercises, carefully checked relevant instructions and data, discussed the flight control coordination procedures and fault plans and other documents, to ensure that the personnel in each position are familiar with the coordination process, have a clear understanding of the fault plan, can do a good job in emergency disposal in the first time, and comprehensively verify the feasibility and safety of the task through visual means.

The elevated panoramic camera was developed by the Eighth Academy of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation and is known as the "Eye of Space". Each panoramic camera is actually a "four-eye camera", which achieves a 1080P high-definition imaging level by stitching and fusing images taken by multiple cameras.

After the work of lifting the camera is completed, the robotic arm is fully extended, and the astronaut is carried out a large-scale transfer, half a circle around the core capsule to reach the new target position. With the support of the robotic arm, the astronauts completed the installation of the spacer foot limiter equipment. Gao Sheng, head of the flight control of the space station system of the Fifth Academy of Aerospace Science and Technology Group, introduced that the foot limiter of the module can fix the astronaut's feet, improve the astronaut's cabin table operation ability, and ensure that it frees up its hands in the follow-up work and completes more and more complex tasks.