Three Chinese astronauts finally have a reliable way to get home from orbit.

The uncrewed Shenzhou 22 spacecraft arrived at Tiangong space station today (Nov. 25) at 2:50 a.m. EST (0750 GMT and 3:50 p.m. Beijing time), about 3.5 hours after launching to orbit atop a Long March 2F/G rocket.

Shenzhou 22 is an unprecedented mission for China — an emergency flight mounted on a short timeline to help out three astronauts who have been "stuck" on Tiangong for the past 10 days.

Those astronauts arrived at the station Oct. 31 for a six-month stay. Their mission, Shenzhou 21, took over from the three-astronaut Shenzhou 20 flight, which was scheduled to come home on Nov. 5.

But things got complicated when Shenzhou 20's departure was delayed after inspections revealed a crack in the window of the

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