China's Shenzhou-15 separates from space station combination

China's Shenzhou-15 manned spaceship separated from the country's space station combination at 9:29pm Saturday (Beijing Time), according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).

Three astronauts, Fei Junlong, Deng Qingming and Zhang Lu, have lived and worked in the space station complex for 186 days.

Prior to the separation, the astronauts undertook various tasks with support from sci-tech personnel on the ground, including completing in-orbit rotation with the Shenzhou-16 crew, setting the status of the space station complex, sorting and downloading experiment data, and clearing and transferring supplies stored in orbit, the CMSA said.

The Shenzhou-15 spaceship will reenter Earth's atmosphere at an appropriate time with the support of ground control.

The three Shenzhou-15 astronauts were sent to the space station on November 29, 2022. They have completed multiple tasks over the past few months, including performing four extravehicular activities, giving two online science lectures, and conducting a number of sci-tech experiments.