China's spiraling space ambitions received a boost on Friday with its Shenzhou-11 spacecraft with its two astronauts landed on Earth successfully after the country's longest manned space mission.
The Shenzhou-11 spacecraft undocked from the Tiangong-2 space module on Thursday. China's CCTV said the manned spacecraft made successful re-entry in Inner Mongolia, around 2.15 p.m. Friday local time.
Shenzhou-11 spacecraft docked with the Tiangong-2 space lab on October 19 more than 40 hours after lift-off, carrying astronauts Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong.
The Tiangong-2 had been put in the orbit a month earlier, fired by a Long March-2F rocket. The name Tiangong-2, translates into "heavenly vessel."
What China accomplished on Friday is the second major step in its manned space flight ambitions, after three Chinese astronauts completed a manual docking between the Shenzhou-9 spacecraft and the orbiting Tiangong-1 lab module in June 2012.
China has plans to launch the permanent space station before 2024 and also to send a manned mission to the moon and a robotic probe to Mars.
