FILE: Beijing, China - Date Unknown (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
1. Various of workers making parachutes
2. Various of parachute

FILE: China - Date Unknown (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
3. Various of landing of re-entry capsule

Beijing, China - June 1, 2023 (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
4. SOUNDBITE (Chinese) Shao Limin, deputy technological manager, manned spacecraft system, China Academy of Space Technology (starting with shot 3/ending with shot 5):
"The closing state means that the parachute is not fully inflated, but its canopy area is already quite large. At this stage, the re-entry capsule is traveling at a very fast speed. If there is a largest drag, it will have a significant impact on spacecraft, which has limits on the overload, just like braking, and the strength of the parachute itself is also limited."

FILE: China - Date Unknown (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
5. Various of landing of re-entry capsule

Beijing, China - June 1, 2023 (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
6. SOUNDBITE (Chinese) Shao Limin, deputy technological manager, manned spacecraft system, China Academy of Space Technology (starting with shot 5/ending with shot 7):
"Our past experience and designs show that the auxiliary systems such as seat boosters and the thrust reverser are only used to further reduce the impact of landing, and they are not the decisive factors in judging the safety of the entire spacecraft or the completion of the mission. Once the main and assisting parachutes start to work, everything is settled at that point."

FILE: China - Date Unknown (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
7. Re-entry capsule touching down on ground

Multiple parachutes will be applied to decelerate the speed of the re-entry capsule of the Shenzhou-15 manned spaceship to ensure a safe return of three Chinese astronauts from their half-year mission aboard the Tiangong space station.

The re-entry capsule has three parachutes -- the drogue, the aeroshell, and the main parachute.

The re-entry capsule would automatically open the hatch of the parachute cabin at an altitude of about 10 kilometers above the ground, and pulls out the drogue, whose main purpose is to pull out of the aeroshell, when the velocity of the re-entry capsule is about 180 meters per second.

The aeroshell would work for 19 seconds before it separates from the re-entry capsule and pulls out the main parachute. By then, the speed of the re-entry capsule is gradually dampened from 80 meters per second to 40 meters per second, then further reduced to seven to eight meters per second.

The aeroshell and the main parachute cannot be opened simultaneously to avoid massive overload. The aeroshell must be in a closing state, or not fully inflated, before the main parachute opens.

"The closing state means that the parachute is not fully inflated, but its canopy area is already quite large. At this stage, the re-entry capsule is traveling at a very fast speed. If there is a largest drag, it will have a significant impact on spacecraft, which has limits on the overload, just like braking, and the strength of the parachute itself is also limited," said Shao Limin, deputy technological manager of manned spacecraft system of China Academy of Space Technology.

The re-entry capsule is also equipped with a backup parachute, which will automatically start to work when the re-entry capsule uses less than the set time to descend from an altitude of six kilometers to five kilometers above the ground.

"Our past experience and designs show that the auxiliary systems such as seat boosters and the thrust reverser are only used to further reduce the impact of landing, and they are not the decisive factors in judging the safety of the entire spacecraft or the completion of the mission. Once the main and assisting parachutes start to work, everything is settled at that point," said Shao.

The Shenzhou-15 crew are expected to touch down at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia of north China on Sunday.