"About a month after a tiny piece of space debris stranded three astronauts for nine days aboard China's Tiangong space station, the taikonauts aboard the orbital outpost have begun making some modifications. According to state media network CGTN, the country's space travelers Zhang Lu and Wu Fei endured an eight-hour spacewalk earlier this week in order to install a debris protection panels on the space station's outer hull. While there, they also performed an inspection of Tiangong's exterior, along with other minor repairs."
"The countermeasure installation comes after the China Manned Space Agency pulled off an uncrewed emergency flight to Tiangong in under two weeks after the damage was discovered. It was an impressive feat, to say the least. Although the Shenzhou-20 space vehicle was meant to bring the previous crew back on November 5, cracks in the craft's window caused by the space debris led to it being judged unsafe for the return voyage."
Chinese taikonauts Zhang Lu and Wu Fei conducted an eight-hour spacewalk to install debris-protection panels on Tiangong's outer hull, inspect the station's exterior, and perform minor repairs. The installation followed an incident in which a small piece of debris cracked a Shenzhou-20 window, rendering that vehicle unsafe for crew return. China Manned Space Agency launched an uncrewed emergency flight in under two weeks to deliver a replacement return vehicle, the Shenzhou-22. Orbital debris travels up to 15 km/s and includes over 25,000 tracked objects and as many as 170 million untracked fragments. Agencies and companies use Whipple shields and developing composite 'space armor' tiles to mitigate impacts.
Read at Futurism
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