Ship back from mission of tracking Shenzhou VII space flight

Special report: Third Manned Space Mission

NANJING, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) -- The Yuanwang V ship returned
to a China port after a 117-day mission of remotely tracking the Shenzhou VII
space flight which blast off in late September.

The return signaled the completion of the tracking
mission by five ships for support of China's first space walk.

The ships, Yuanwang I,II, III, V and VI, set sail
Aug. 18 last year and traversed nearly 100,000 sea miles in the Pacific and
Atlantic Oceans.

China successfully launched the Shenzhou VII manned
spacecraft on Sept. 25. During the 68-hour flight, taikonaut Zhai Zhigang,
wearing a domestically made Feitian space suit, conducted a 20-minute space
walk. China became the third nation to conduct a space walk, after Russia and
the United States.

The ships monitored the entire space walk and also
kept tabs on the depressurization of the orbital module when the taikonaut left
and re-entered the spaceship.

They also controlled the shuttle's solar panels, its
orbit maneuvers and maintenance.

"In previous missions, including the Shenzhou V and
Shenzhou VImissions, only four tracking ships were deployed," said Jian Shilong,
director with the China Maritime Tracking and Control Department. "We added one
more to the Shenzhou VII mission to monitor the taikonaut's extra-vehicular
activities."

In all, China boasts a fleet of six Yuanwang space
tracking ships which have carried out some 70 expeditions and traveled more than
1.5 million sea miles in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans.

The tracking ships constitute China's space telemetry
network together with some 20 terrestrial surveying station.