Xinhua news agency said Shenzhou IV touched down in Inner Mongolia in northern China, six days after its launch into space.

Shenzhou IV is China's fourth test spacecraft to successfully complete its mission in the nation's bid to put a human into orbit and it is regarded as the final precursor to a manned space flight.

"The return of the spaceship represents a complete success of the fourth test flight of the program, which began in 1992," Xinhua quoted unnamed experts in charge of the program as saying.

"The successful launch and return of Shenzhou IV shows China's technology for manned flights is becoming increasingly mature, which lays a solid foundation for eventually sending up manned flights."

The United States and the former Soviet Union are the only other nations to independently send a human into orbit.

Compared with the three previous unmanned space capsules China has launched, Shenzhou IV is the country's most sophisticated mission, Yuan Jie, director of the Shanghai Aerospace Bureau, said last week.

Xinhua said Sunday Shenzhou IV's mission in space lasted six days and 18 hours, during which it circled the earth 108 times.

It successfully performed several hundred moves in space, including unfolding its solar panels, Xinhua said.

Officials said Shenzhou IV launched with all the prerequisites for a manned flight and even had spare clothes that astronauts might need to change into.

"All the systems for manned space flights, including an astronaut system and life-support sub-system have been fitted on the spaceship and tested," Xinhua said.

Astronauts even had some training time in Shenzhou IV before it hit the launch pad, maneuvering around equipment that had been rearranged to simulate comfortable living and working arrangements inside the capsule.

Two previous unmanned spacecrafts put into orbit by China, the Shenzhou II and Shenzhou III, were also capable of manned flight but the Shenzhou IV system guaranteed astronauts' complete safety, Xinhua quoted Qi Faren, the spacecraft's chief designer, as saying Friday.

The satisfactory performance of the Long March 2F rocket, which helped the spacecraft blast off, also boosted Chinese confidence that a manned flight was imminent, the China Daily said.

The Shanghai Aerospace Bureau's Yuan has said this will happen in the second half of the year, although this is not a foregone conclusion.

The Chinese space programme, set up in 1992, is run by the military and is shrouded in official secrecy.

SPACE.WIRE