China Delays Shenzhou-20 Crew’s Return Due to Possible Debris Strike

China decided today to delay the return of their Shenzhou-20 crew because of concern that their spacecraft may have been struck by orbital debris. The three-man crew has been aboard the Tiangong-3 space station since April and their replacements arrived on Saturday.

In a brief statement, China’s official news agency Xinhua said the return would be “postponed due to a suspected impact from tiny space debris” and an “analysis and risk assessment are underway.”

The crew —  Chen Dong, Chen Zhongrui and Wang Jie — launched to Tiangong-3 on April 25 and have spent the last six months conducting four spacewalks and a variety of scientific and technical experiments.

Their Shenzhou-21 replacements arrived on Saturday Beijing Time and the official crew handover took place earlier today.

China’s Shenzhou-20 crew has completed its in-orbit handover with the Shenzhou-21 crew and is scheduled to return to Earth on Nov. 5 https://t.co/Hp2XTApSmz pic.twitter.com/WyvOYESHkQ

— China Xinhua Sci-Tech (@XHscitech) November 4, 2025

No further information about the spacecraft damage and how it was discovered is available as of press time.

The term space debris refers to human-made objects — old satellites, rocket stages, or fragments thereof — that serve no useful purpose. Natural objects — micrometeoroids — can also pose a threat.

Human-made debris is an increasing problem especially in low Earth orbit where China’s space station and the U.S.-Russian-European-Japanese-Canadian International Space Station operate. China itself is responsible for thousands of pieces of debris that remain in orbit today from a 2007 anti-satellite test where they launched a missile to impact one of their own satellites as a demonstration.  But the population of both debris and active satellites is growing because of the actions of many countries and companies since then.

Even a speck of paint traveling at orbital velocity of 17,500 miles per hour can pose a threat to any spacecraft.

The ISS has had to maneuver out of the way of space debris many times in recent years and the ISS crew — including three Russians — had to shelter in their Earth-return spacecraft for a day after a 2021 Russian anti-satellite test. Most of that debris has reentered by now, however, unlike that from China’s 2007 test. The Secure World Foundation maintains a spreadsheet that tracks all the debris from U.S., Soviet/Russian, Chinese and Indian ASAT tests.

That’s just a fraction of what’s in Earth orbit, though. The U.S. Space Force is currently tracking over 47,000 objects, of which about 10,000 are active satellites and the rest debris. More than 8,000 of the active satellites are SpaceX Starlinks.

The Russian Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft docked at the ISS in December 2022 was damaged and its coolant leaked into space. A few months later a Progress cargo craft, Progress MS-21, also was damaged. The exact causes were difficult to ascertain, especially for Progress because it burns up in the atmosphere and can’t be studied back on Earth, but the most likely cause of the Soyuz MS-22 coolant leak was attributed to a micrometeoroid strike. The spacecraft was deemed unsafe to return the crew to Earth and a replacement had to be launched, delaying the crew’s return for six months.