China’s stranded astronauts returning from space  station on spacecraft that brought new crew

BEIJING, Nov 14: Three Chinese astronauts stranded at their nation’s space station after their spacecraft was apparently hit by space debris departed for home Friday using the craft that had brought a replacement crew, China’s space agency said. Their capsule was expected to land in a remote part of northwest China’s Inner Mongolia region later the same day. The astronauts were on a six-month rotation at the space station and had been originally scheduled to return November 5, four days after the new crew arrived. Their return was delayed for more than a week. China’s Manned Space Engineering Office said there were minor cracks in a window of the return capsule of the Shenzhou-20 spacecraft, most likely caused by impact from space debris. There are millions of pieces of mostly t