China conducts manned spacewalk in secrecy

China revealed this week that for the 2^nd time in 3 months, their astronauts ventured on a secretive space walk around the Tiangong space station.

Two members of the Shenzhou 15 crew, who are known as the “Dream Crew,” successfully left the space station and were able to complete their “scheduled tasks” with the assistance of two crew members, one working from the ground and one who remained in the space station, CMSA (China Manned Space Agency) confirmed.

The announcement was made after the mission was successfully carried out.  Space News questioned why CMSA chose not to announce that the astronauts would be conducting another out-of-cabin mission.

“For the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), less transparency means more power, the power to deter, disinform and disarm enemies, reflecting ancient Chinese strategic values,” Rick Fisher, a senior fellow with the International Assessment and Strategy Center, told Fox News Digital. “Furthermore, the CCP in all areas, not just outer space, seeks the status of hegemon, meaning that it cannot be accountable to any non-CCP-created rule or value system, so the CCP has no problem not warning other nations about its space activities.”

The three-man crew have been at space station since November 29^th, which means they are creeping up on 100 days in space.

The “Dream Crew” took over the reins from the Shenzhou 14 crew aboard Tiangong. This was China’s first successful handover of a manned crew.

Russia and China have signed a deal to develop a joint lunar station by 2035.  This was announced by the head of Moscow’s space agency Roscosmos Wednesday.  

“After a detailed analysis of the landing area by automatic probes, soil sampling and researches into the presence of water, we will switch over to the next phase: possibly and most likely in close contact with our Chinese partners this will involve building a future lunar base,” Yury Borisov said during a live broadcast according to Russia state owned media outlet TASS.  “Quite recently, we signed an agreement with the Chinese side on joint work in this field.”