China prepares for return of space capsule

China today prepared for the return of the Shenzhou 6 mission, saying that the capsule was operating smoothly and its two astronauts were doing well after five days in space.

The vessel was tracked over the grasslands of China’s Inner Mongolia early today, the official Xinhua News Agency said. It did not give any details on when the mission was expected to touch down, but news reports have said it might be tonight or early tomorrow.

Yang Guiming, a senior engineer at the Central Meteorological Observation Station, said the weather was expected to be ideal in the next two days at Inner Mongolia’s Siziwangqi, the planned landing site.

“Visibility is high, winds will be low and there will be no rain,” Xinhua cited Yang as saying.

The agency also said that “the astronauts are feeling well and the spacecraft is operating normally”.

Sui Qisheng, chief commander for systems at Siziwangqi, was quoted by Xinhua as saying that “all the systems are ready and standing by, all the equipment and communication systems are in good shape” for the landing.

Six helicopters, 14 special vehicles and more than 200 emergency rescue workers were waiting for the mission’s return, Sui said.

Another team of vehicles and rescuers were at a secondary landing site in Jiuquan in the Gobi Desert of China’s northwest, Xinhua said.

Shenzhou 6 had orbited around the earth at least 66 times since blasting off on Wednesday on China’s second manned space flight, logging more than 1.7 million miles, Xinhua said.

The Beijing News said Nie and Fei will undergo 40 minutes of medical check-ups after landing.

They will each be taken to the local airport by helicopter before boarding a flight to Beijing, it said.

Both will be in isolation for observation for 14 days after the mission, but family members will be allowed to visit, the Beijing Youth Daily said.