Manual space docking 'a complete success'

BEIJING - A spokeswoman of China's manned space program said Sunday the manual space docking was "a complete success", marking an important achievement for the country's docking mission between Shenzhou IX and Tiangong-1 space lab module.

Wu Ping, spokeswoman for China's manned space program, told a press conference in Beijing that three Chinese astronauts have already re-entered the space lab module to continue their scientific experiments.

Three astronauts - veteran astronaut and mission commander Jing Haipeng, crew mate Liu Wang and China's first woman astronaut Liu Yang - successfully completed a manual docking between the Shenzhou IX spacecraft and the orbiting Tiangong-1 lab module, the first such attempt in China's history of space exploration.

"Currently, the operation of the conjoint Shenzhou IX spacecraft and Tiangong-1 space lab is normal and all astronauts are in good conditions," Wu said.

After spending another several days in space to complete all experiments tasks, astronauts will manually maneuver the Shenzhou IX spacecraft to part the Tiangong-1 space lab module and return to Earth in a return capsule, Wu said.

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