The State Council Information Office held a press conference in Beijing at 10:30 AM today, about six hours after the return of Shenzhou VI's reentry capsule, at which Tang Xianming, director of China Manned-Space Engineering Office reviewed the successful mission.

Tang said: "I have just come from Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Center in China Aerospace City. I am very delighted to tell all of you the flight of Shenzhou VI has been a great success."

Chinese taikonauts will conduct a spacewalk in 2007, he added, and the country will launch target fliers and conduct rendezvous docking in orbit by 2009-12, while a Moon-circling satellite is also being developed.

Shenzhou VI was launched carrying Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the northwestern province of Gansu at 9 AM on October 12 for China's second manned space flight.

During the mission, ground command and control staff kept contact with the crew and after five days the spacecraft landed safely on the grassland of central Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region as planned.

Though the reentry module returned to Earth, the orbital module continued in-orbit scientific experiments.

Shenzhou VI had a three-module structure, with an orbital module at the top, propelling module at the bottom and reentry module in between. It was 8 meters long and weighed 8,079 kg.

The Long March 2F rocket, developed in China, was used to launch it, measuring 58.4 meters in length and weighing 480 tons on lift-off.

(China.org.cn October 17, 2005)