A pair of Chinese astronauts on Tuesday managed to complete a nine-hour spacewalk, beating a 20-plus year record attributed to US astronauts James Voss and Susan Helms.

Cai Xuzhe and Song Lingdong completed the nine-hour spacewalk shortly before 10 PM Beijing time on Tuesday, a press release issued by the China Manned Space Agency revealed.

Cai and Song, as well as their crewmate Wang Haoze, are crew members on the Shenzhou-19 spaceflight, which lifted off on October 29 from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, bound for the Tiangong space station.

"Cai Xuzhe, Song Lingdong and Wang Haoze, worked for nine hours on completing multiple tasks, including the installation of space-debris protection devices," a statement issued by the agency in English said.

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"They were assisted by the space station's robotic arm and a team on Earth."

Over recent years, China's National Space Administration has ramped up the country's space program. Earlier this year, they used robots to collect the first-ever lunar samples from the dark side of the moon.

Cai and Song's effort, completed with the help of Haoze, beats the US' long-standing record of eight hours and 56 minutes. The record, held by James Voss and Susan Helms since March 12, 2001, is yet to be updated by Guinness World Records.

The China Manned Space Agency made it clear in their statement that this would not be the only spacewalk undertaken during the mission, and revealed a selection of experiments and tests to come.

"The Shenzhou-19 crew is set to carry out a slew of scheduled space-science experiments and technical tests," the statement read. "While they will also undertake additional extravehicular activities and install payloads outside the space station."

"Extravehicular astronauts Cai Xuzhe and Song Lingdong have safely returned to the Wentian laboratory module."

"The extravehicular activities were a complete success, once again breaking the record for the length of extravehicular activities of Chinese astronauts."