Three Chinese astronauts, or taikonauts, have been temporarily stranded in space after their return capsule was struck by a piece of suspected "space junk" hours before it was due to depart. Officials are investigating exactly what happened, but so far, there is no indication of how much damage the craft sustained or when the crew will return to Earth.
The taikonaut trio — Wang Jie, Chen Zhongrui and Chen Dong, collectively known as the Shenzhou-20 crew — has been living on China's Tiangong space station since April 24. They were due to return to Earth Wednesday (Nov. 5) following a successful handover period with the Shenzhou-21 crew, who arrived on the station on Halloween (Oct. 31). However, earlier on Wednesday, at around 10:30 a.m. local time, representatives from the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) announced that the astronauts' return had been postponed, via a statement posted on the Chinese social media site Weibo.
