A slightly swollen face on Hong Kong's first astronaut, Lai Ka-ying, has caught public attention as new Tiangong space station footage reveals life in orbit three weeks after launch.
The latest video, released on Sunday, captured Lai alongside mission commander Zhu Yangzhu and crewmate Zhang Zhiyuan steadily carrying out their tasks in short sleeves and shorts against gravity.
But attention soon turned to Lai, who appeared with a rigid, upward-pointing ponytail and a slightly swollen face in zero gravity.
Space experts confirmed that this is normal "puffy face syndrome" caused by fluid shifts in microgravity, where body fluids travel upward, giving astronauts a temporarily fuller, puffier face.
The crew has completed several tasks over the past three weeks, including an in-orbit handover and rotation with the Shenzhou-21 crew, as well as undocking the Shenzhou-22 crewed spaceship from the space station.
Notably, the team also completed the fourth installation of radiation biology exposure devices outside the station modules.
During the latest payload mission, the astronauts installed three experimental samples — nanozymes, actinomycetes, and plant seeds–for a five-month exposure to study the deep effects of space radiation on biological samples.
