The three astronauts of China's Shenzhou 20 mission are coming home a bit late — and in a different spacecraft than the one they rode up in.

The Shenzhou 20 trio were supposed to leave China's Tiangong space station on Nov. 5. But the departure was postponed after their Shenzhou 20 spacecraft absorbed an impact, apparently from a small piece of space debris.

The taikonauts finally left Tiangong on Thursday (Nov. 13) at 10:14 p.m. EDT (0314 GMT and 11:14 a.m. Beijing time on Nov. 14). But they left the Shenzhou 20 vehicle behind, traveling instead in the newly arrived Shenzhou 21 spacecraft.

"The Shenzhou-20 spacecraft does not meet the requirements for the astronauts' safe return and will remain in orbit to continue relevant experiments," the state-run Xinhua news outlet reported on Thu

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