The Shenzhou-9 spacecraft has spent about 13 days in space.

Shenzhou-9 took off on June 16th carrying three astronauts, including a female, 33-year-old Liu Yang. After the successful launch she became the nation's first woman in space. The crew's mission was to complete China's first-ever manned space docking, a task it ended up successfully accomplishing, both automatically and manually.

The spacecraft first docked with Tiangong-1 using automatic systems on June 18th and then again on June 24th with the astronauts at the wheel. China became just the third country in the world to perform a manned docking in orbit. Following the docking, President Hu Jintao spoke to the astronauts from Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Center.