China's Spacewalk Team Returns To Rousing Welcome In Beijing

BEIJING, Sept 29 (Bernama) -- Hundreds of people lined the streets to give a rousing welcome to China's three astronauts when they returned to the Beijing Aerospace Centre on Monday morning after the space walk mission.

Flight commander Zhai Zhigang, who performed the extra vehicular activity (EVA) and fellow crew members Liu Boming and Jing Haipeng, dressed in blue uniforms and black boots, were garlanded and showed with bouquets, state television showed.

They appeared in good spirits as they waved and smiled to the crowd, each standing in the back of open-top sedans with Zhai in the lead.After the brief parade, the astronauts will undergo two weeks of quarantine to check on their physical condition.

Zhai's walk in space triggered another wave of China patriotism after the country's table-topping golden harvest in the recent Olympic Gamesin Beijing and another remarkable earlier feat of taking the Olympic flame up Mount Everest, the world's highest peak.

The latest Shenzhou VII mission, the third manned flight by China in five years, was closely followed by the Chinese leadership with President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao congratulating the astronauts and shaking hands with ground command centre workers.

"It was a glorious mission, full of challenges with a perfect ending. I feel proud of the motherland," said Zhai after stepping outside the space capsule that landed in Inner Mongolia on Sunday evening.

He had worn a China-made spacesuit, considered another breakthrough for the country's space technology.

Space mission spokesman Wang Zhaoyao revealed China's ambition to aim for a manned moon landing but gave no timetable for that.

The next step is to assemble a space laboratory in 2010 and a space station by 2020.

The eighth and ninth Shenzhou, meaning divine vessel in Chinese, missions are unmanned to test out docking technology.

Shenzhou VIII will lift off "in early 2009, only months from now", an inside source with the project's rocket system told the China Daily.

The launch of Shenzhou IX is also planned for next year, followed by Shenzhou X, the next manned journey to set up the space laboratory.

-- BERNAMA