China has postponed a mission to return three astronauts from its space station after a suspected debris strike on a spacecraft, the country’s space authorities said on Wednesday. The China Manned Space Agency said in a statement that an analysis of the suspected strike and a risk assessment was underway, and that it had decided to delay the return mission for the health and safety of the astronauts. The mission, known as Shenzhou-20, was launched on April 24 from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northern China’s Gobi Desert and is the 35th flight of the country’s manned space program. The astronauts — the mission commander, Chen Dong, and Chen Zhongrui and Wang Jie — have spent six months in orbit at the Tiangong space station. They were expected to return on Thursday to the Dongfeng Landing Site in China’s northern region of Inner Mongolia.

Full report : China’s space authorities said they were investigating whether an object had hit a Chinese spacecraft and the risks tied to it.