China's first astronaut returns to Earth

The space mission Shenzhou 9 ended successfully today after 13 days in orbit , toreturn to Earth the three astronauts, including the first Chinese woman to go into space. The Shenzhou 9 landed this morning at around 10:00 local time (02:00 GMT) in adesert area of the Asian giant in expecting a large group of scientists and doctors. The Chinese news agency Xinhua said the astronauts, who were examined just returned to Earth, "are in good health." Chinese state television, which has given extensive media coverage the event, broadcast part of the return to Earth, and again emphasized that for the first time three astronauts have made ​​manual coupling between the capsule Shenzhou 9 and the space station Tiangong- 1 , into orbit space since September 2011. The three astronauts Jing Haipeng, Liu Wang and Liu Yang, the first Chinese to go into space, fell to the Chinese media and smiled, after completing 13 days of mission in which, in addition to carrying out the manual docking the Tiangong-1 , have carried out scientific experiments. The Chinese media have presented this mission as a milestone in American history as the most important event since the Beijing Olympics in 2008. This is the fourth manned mission conducted by the Asian giant and is intended to lay the foundation for building a space station larger China, to come into operation around 2020 and could compete with those with Russia and the West.