San Francisco Frontiers - China's Shenzhou-19 astronauts return to Earth

China has ploughed billions of dollars into its space programme in recent years in an effort to achieve what President Xi Jinping describes as the country's "space dream".

The world's second-largest economy has bold plans to send a crewed mission to the Moon by the end of the decade and eventually build a base on the lunar surface.

Its latest launch last week ferried a trio of astronauts to the Tiangong space station, heralding the start of the Shenzhou-20 mission.

They have taken over from Shenzhou-19 crew Cai Xuzhe, Song Lingdong and Wang Haoze, whose landing capsule touched down in the northern Inner Mongolia region on Wednesday.

Shortly after the landing, the Xinhua state news agency said the mission was a "complete success", adding that the trio were in "good health".

Pictures from state broadcaster CCTV showed the capsule, attached to a red-and-white striped parachute, descending through an azure sky before hitting the ground in a cloud of brown desert dust.

Teams of officials in white and orange jumpsuits then rushed to open the golden craft, and one planted a fluttering national flag into the sandy soil nearby.

The Shenzhou-19 crew had worked on the space station since October, where they carried out experiments and set a new record for the longest ever spacewalk.

They were initially scheduled to return on Tuesday, but the mission was postponed due to bad weather at the Dongfeng landing site, according to Chinese authorities.

Wang, 35, was China's only woman spaceflight engineer at the time of the launch, according to the Chinese Manned Space Agency (CMSA).

Commander Cai, a 48-year-old former air force pilot, previously served aboard Tiangong as part of the Shenzhou-14 mission in 2022.

Song, a 34-year-old onetime air force pilot, completed the group of spacefarers popularly dubbed "taikonauts" in China.

- Bold ambitions -

Last week, China saw off the Shenzhou-20 team in a feast of pomp and pageantry at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Base in the barren desert of northwestern Gansu province.

A military band and crowds of flag-waving well-wishers bade farewell to the crew before they blasted off on a Long March-2F rocket.

State media reported that they assumed control of the space station after a handover ceremony with its former occupants on Sunday.

The all-male Shenzhou-20 crew is headed by Chen Dong, 46, a former fighter pilot and veteran space explorer who in 2022 became the first Chinese astronaut to clock up more than 200 cumulative days in orbit.

The other two crew members -- 40-year-old former air force pilot Chen Zhongrui, and 35-year-old former space technology engineer Wang Jie -- are on their first space flight.

During their six-month stint, the crew will carry out experiments in physics and life sciences and install protective equipment against space debris.

For the first time, they will also bring aboard planarians, aquatic flatworms known for their regenerative abilities.

China's space programme is the third to put humans in orbit and has also landed robotic rovers on Mars and the Moon as it catches up with the two most established cosmic powers, the United States and Russia.

Tiangong -- whose name means "celestial palace" in Chinese -- is its tour de force.

China has never been involved in the International Space Station due to opposition from the United States.

Washington plans to return to the Moon in 2027, though the election of President Donald Trump brought uncertainty over the mission's fate.

D.Parker--SFF