China's unmanned spaceship "Shenzhou IV" returned to earth on schedule Sunday evening (Jan.5) from its six-day flight, officials in charge of the space program said.
The spaceship landed successfully at 7:16 p.m. in the designated area in the middle part of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in north China, said the officials.
Experts in charge of China's manned space program said the return of the spaceship represents a complete success of the fourth test flight of the program, which began in 1992.
"The successful launch and return of 'Shenzhou IV' shows China's technology for manned flights is becoming increasingly mature, which lays a solid foundation for eventually sending up manned flights," said the experts.
During its space mission that lasted six days and 18 hours, "Shenzhou IV" circled the earth 108 times.
The capsule was launched from the
Jiuquan Manned Space Launch Site in northwest China's Gansu province at 0:40 a.m. on Dec. 30 atop a Long March II F rocket.
During the flight, the spaceship was tracked and controlled by the
Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Center through its four "Yuanwang" aerospace survey ships stationed in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans and its ground control stations, according to the experts.
The spacecraft successfully performed several hundred moves in space, including unfolding its solar panels.
The experts said "Shenzhou IV," the third unmanned capsule of China's ongoing manned space program, is identical to manned spaceships except there were no men aboard.
All the systems for manned space flights, including an astronaut system and life-support sub-system have been fitted on the spaceship and tested, said the experts.
Chinese would-be astronauts entered the spaceship prior to the launch to train for the first time.
A number of research projects were conducted in the spaceship during the flights, involving earth observation, material science and space astronomy.
All the instruments aboard were functioning normally, and collected a great deal of test data and scientific material while the spacecraft was orbiting, said the experts.
The "Shenzhou" re-entry vehicle, containing materials from experiments carried out in-flight, will be transported to
Beijing later for technical analysis and scientific research, while its orbiter will continue to orbit for an unspecified number of days for related space science and application experiments.
