China has indefinitely postponed the return of three astronauts from its Tiangong space station after their Shenzhou-20 spacecraft was reportedly hit by debris, raising concerns and sparking some online speculation over a possible U.S.-led rescue similar to SpaceX’s past missions.
The China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) announced the delay on November 5, stating that engineers are assessing the spacecraft’s condition. Commander Chen Dong and astronauts Chen Zhongrui and Wang Jie launched aboard Shenzhou-20 on April 24 for a six-month mission of experiments and spacewalks.
Their return, originally planned for November 5, was halted during a crew handover with Shenzhou-21, a separate Chinese spacecraft that docked at the space station on October 31.
Yet, the CMSA published a statement on November 11 saying that safety remains the top priority, the return mission for the astronauts is proceeding as expected, and the crew is not in any danger. However, that has not stopped a peanut gallery of online commentators from calling on Elon Musk and SpaceX to offer assistance in bringing them home, something Musk has done in the past.
The delay is officially the first known debris-related postponement for a Chinese space mission and highlights the growing threat of space junk — fragments from old satellites and rockets that can cause some catastrophic damage in orbit.
Even tiny particles of debris can puncture spacecraft, as shown by the 2022 micrometeoroid hit that crippled a Russian spacecraft docked at the International Space Station (ISS). In that case, Russia sent an uncrewed ship back up to the ISS to bring its astronauts home safely, per SpaceNews.com.
Online, many have compared the situation to the March 2025 SpaceX rescue of NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who were stranded after Boeing’s Starliner capsule malfunctioned, as previously reported by The Dallas Express. SpaceX, at that time, formed a crew that brought them home after a Trump administration directive fast-tracked the mission, with a successful return splashdown off the coast of Florida on March 18.
Some online have now urged SpaceX and Musk to attempt a similar operation for China’s stranded crew, but some steep technical and political barriers are in the way.
Firstly, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon’s next missions are booked through mid-2026, and some of China’s docking ports are incompatible with NASA or SpaceX systems. A spacewalk transfer, as proven in 2024’s Polaris Dawn mission, would also be impractical since Chinese launch suits lack certain capabilities, and some of their spacesuits cannot fit through SpaceX’s hatches or connect to its life-support systems.
A report from TheConversation.com titled, “Modern spacesuits have a compatibility problem. Astronauts’ lives depend on fixing it,” foreshadowed some of these exact problems in March of this year.
As the China Manned Space Engineering Office continues to plan the return of the astronauts, the Shenzhou-20 crew will remain aboard the Tiangong space station.