China鈥檚 second crewed spaceflight ended successfully on Monday as the Shenzhou VI craft returned to Earth. Touchdown prompted celebrations and plans for an ambitious new mission in 2007, which will include a spacewalk.
The capsule carrying Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng parachuted down to a field in the northern Chinese region of Inner Mongolia to bring their five-day mission to a close, reported Xinhua, China鈥檚 official news agency.
Emerging from the module, the two took a few seconds to adjust to the Earth鈥檚 gravity, before being presented with bouquets of flowers and waving to assembled recovery teams and ground-control staff. 鈥淥ur journey was very smooth,鈥� a smiling Fei told state television. 鈥淭he living and working conditions inside the cabin were very good. Our health is okay.鈥�
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The successful mission, followed for the past 115 hours by millions of people across China, marked another step in China鈥檚 progress as an emerging space power.
Space station
Soon after the taikonauts touched down at 0433 local time (2033 GMT on Sunday), Tang Xianming, director of the China Manned Space Engineering Office, announced that the next crewed mission would take place in 2007 and would include a spacewalk.
Then, some time in the period between 2009 and 2012, he said, two spacecraft would dock in orbit, in preparation for establishing a permanent space station.
One of China鈥檚 most senior politicians, Wu Bangguo, watched the return of Shenzhou VI from the Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Center. He hailed the mission as a milestone: 鈥淚t is of great significance in elevating China鈥檚 prestige in the world and promoting China鈥檚 economic, scientific and national defence capabilities, and its national cohesiveness.鈥�
Fei and Nie were taken by special plane to a military airport on the outskirts of Beijing, saluting briskly and shaking hands with defence minister Cao Gangchuan. 鈥淚 can feel that lots of people are thinking about us. We鈥檙e very grateful for all the love and concern from our motherland and its people,鈥� Nie said.
鈥淧icture perfect鈥�
Shenzhou VI orbited Earth at a speed of 7.9 kilometres (4.9 miles) per second and travelled 3.25 million km during its five-day journey.
鈥淚t was, as far as we know, a picture-perfect mission,鈥� said Joan Johnson-Freese, an expert on China鈥檚 space programme at the US Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.
The flight was China鈥檚 second crewed space mission. Its first was the Shenzhou V mission in October 2003, which made it the third nation to put a person into space, after the former Soviet Union and the US.
But China鈥檚 maiden space voyage involved lone astronaut Yang Liwei spending 21 hours orbiting the Earth without leaving his seat or taking off his space suit. In contrast, Fei and Nie conducted a series of experiments and manoeuvres, including moving from the re-entry capsule to the orbital capsule and taking off their bulky suits.
鈥淭he views that we had showed that the forward section was quite crammed with equipment,鈥� said James Oberg, a US-based aerospace commentator. 鈥淭hey were clearly busy.鈥�
MORE: Read about, China鈥檚 50-year-long space programme and its desert launch site, a sprawling oasis in the Gobi desert.
