China's second manned space flight ended successfully Monday as the Shenzhou VI craft returned to Earth, leading to patriotic celebrations and plans for an ambitious new mission in 2007.
The capsule carrying astronauts Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng parachuted softly onto a field in the northern Chinese region of Inner Mongolia to bring their five-day mission to a close, Xinhua news agency said.
"Our journey in space was very smooth. The living and working conditions inside the cabin were very good. Our health is okay, thanks," Fei said on state television, with a radiant smile.
Emerging from the module, the two took a few seconds to adjust to the Earth's gravity, before being presented with bouquets of flowers and waving to assembled recovery teams and ground control staff.
The successful mission, followed for the past 115 hours by millions of people across the country, boosted the nation's prestige and marked another step in China's progress towards becoming a space power.
Soon after the astronauts touched down, Tang Xianming, director of the China Manned Space Engineering Office, announced that the next manned mission would take place in 2007 and would include a spacewalk.
"Now I can tell you all that around 2007, astronauts would walk out of the cabin and walk in space," he told a press conference.
Two spacecraft would dock in orbit some time in the period between 2009 and 2012 in preparation for establishing a permanent space station, he said.
China's top legislator Wu Bangguo, who watched the return of Shenzhou VI from the Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Center, hailed the mission as a milestone.
"It is of great significance in elevating China's prestige in the world and promoting China's economic, scientific and national defense capabilities, and its national cohesiveness," he was quoted saying by the People's Daily website.
Xinhua reported that the capsule landed upright after touching down at 4:33 am (2033 GMT Sunday), just one kilometer (1,100 yards) from the intended landing site.
Shenzhou VI orbited around the earth at a speed of 7.9 kilometers (4.9 miles) per second and travelled 3.25 million kilometers during the five-day journey, it said.
"It was, as far as we know, what I'm sure they'd like to refer to as a picture-perfect mission," said Joan Johnson-Freese, an expert on China's space program at the US Naval War College.
Fei and Nie were taken by special plane to a military airport on the outskirts of Beijing, saluting briskly and shaking hands with Defense Minister Cao Gangchuan.
"I can feel that lots of people are thinking about us. We're very grateful for all the love and concern from our motherland and its people," Nie said.
In his hometown in Zaoyang county of northern Hebei province, hundreds of proud residents hit the streets from before sunrise to mark the spacecraft's safe return.
State television showed footage of the town celebrating its most famous son with firecrackers and dragon dances.
The flight was China's second manned space mission after Shenzhou V in October 2003, which made China the third nation after the former Soviet Union and the United States to put a man into space.
The spacecraft blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on Inner Mongolia's border with Gansu province on Wednesday.
The flight was in many ways a leap forward compared with China's maiden space voyage, when lone astronaut Yang Liwei spent 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 maneuvers, including leaving the re-entry capsule and entering the orbital capsule at the nose of the craft, taking off their bulky suits.
"The views that we had showed that the foward section was quite crammed with equipment, and what appeared to be observation cameras," said James Oberg, a US-based aerospace consultant. "They were clearly busy."
