China's maiden manned space mission a success

China on Thursday declared that its maiden manned space mission was a 'complete success' with its first astronaut on board the Shenzhou V spacecraft returning safely to Earth.

The re-entry module of the spacecraft landed safely at 6.28 am (0358 IST) on the grasslands of Inner Mangolia in north China, Xinhua news agency said.

The astronaut, Yang Liwei, was seen coming out of the re-entry capsule of the Shenzhou V spacecraft and waving to the recovery team, Xinhua news agency said. Yang had spent 21 hours in space, travelled more than 600,000km and orbited the Earth 14 times. He became the 241st human being to visit outer space.

The recovery personnel at the landing site said 38-year-old Yang's health condition was good.

Soon after touching down, television pictures showed astronaut Yang Liwei getting out of the re-entry capsule and waving to the recovery team.

Yang, a fighter pilot-turned astronaut who has at least 1350 hrs of flight experience, landed 5km from the target.

In his first comment after landing, he told state television, "The spacecraft operated well. I feel very good and I am proud of my motherland."

Later, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao talked to the astronaut and warmly congratulated him. "China's first space flight has been a complete success," Wen was quoted as saying by the news agency.

Central Military Commission chairman and former Chinese president Jiang Zemin also sent a congratulatory message on the successful manned space mission, which is run under the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

Yang's return to land from outer space signifies completion of the first step taken by China to implement its plans for space exploration. More steps are to follow -- attempts for space walk, rendezvous and docking of spaceships and setting up of a space lab.

"Sometime from now, up in space, high up over the Earth, there will be a space station which, like Shenzhen V that has just made history, will be designed, built and manned by the Chinese," the Xinhua news agency reported.

The United States has congratulated China for the successful launch of its first astronaut into space. "This is a historic achievement, and we applaud China's success in becoming only the third country to launch people into space," US state department spokesman Richard Boucher had said on Wednesday.

Asked whether there was any possibility of any future cooperation in space programmes between the US and China, Boucher said, "That is pretty speculative at this point. We have not been involved in the launch of this vehicle. We haven't been assisting in any way."

Boucher added that the US did offer routine collision avoidance analysis for safety purposes to make sure the spacecraft did not collide with any known objects in orbit, including American satellites. "That's routinely conducted for all US and Russian human space flight activities, but that's the extent of cooperation that there is now," he said.