AP Graphics CHINA SPACE, CHINA SPACESHIP

BEIJING (AP) — China’s first astronaut in space returned safely to Earth early Thursday when his craft touched down as planned after 21 hours in orbit. Beijing’s mission control declared the country’s landmark debut flight “a success.”

The craft carrying Lt. Col. Yang Liwei touched down on the grasslands of Inner Mongolia in northern China as planned at dawn Thursday, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Minutes later, he grabbed the capsule hatch with his hand, pulled himself out and waved at rescuers, though footage showed him appearing a bit dazed.

The government said Shenzhou 5 landed at 6:23 a.m. (2223 GMT Wednesday). It said Yang, a 38-year-old fighter pilot turned astronaut, landed just 5 kilometers (3 miles) from his target.

“The mission was a success,” said Li Jinai, the head of China’s manned space program. He called Yang a “space hero.”

The completion of the mission was the crowning achievement of an 11-year, military-linked manned space program promoted as a symbol of national prestige both at home and abroad.

Within hours, a top official announced through Xinhua that China’s space dreams will continue apace with plans for an eventual space lab and a space station that could be serviced and supplied by Shenzhou capsules.

“The successful mission of Shenzhou 5 is the first step of China’s space program,” said Zhang Qingwei, the second most senior officer in charge of the country’s space program. Xinhua said such a space station would “prepare China for further exploration of outer space.”

The country’s premier, Wen Jiabao, immediately spoke to Yang from Beijing and offered congratulations.

“The spaceship operated well,” Yang said in his first publicized comments, reported by Xinhua. “I feel very good and I am proud of my motherland.”

The government said Yang’s condition was “good,” and the Web site Sina.com said he would undergo an immediate physical exam. He was in a helicopter en route to Beijing less than two hours after landing, the state broadcaster China Central Television reported.

“Great Leap Skyward,” the state-controlled newspaper China Daily enthused Thursday morning.

The flight came four decades after the former Soviet Union and the United States pioneered manned spaceflight. Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth in 1961. Less than one month later, the United States launched Alan B. Shepard Jr.

His landing came after Shenzhou 5 orbited the Earth 14 times. Though the government has been very secretive about its space program, it offered frequent glimpses of Yang throughout the trip and repeatedly said everything was going fine.

Helicopters and trucks rushed to retrieve Yang. Earlier reports said the astronaut would be armed with knives and possibly a gun to protect himself against wild animals and other threats in the Inner Mongolian grasslands where the ship was to touch down.

Xinhua said the Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Center sent a message at about 5:35 a.m. Thursday (2135 GMT Wednesday) to Shenzhou 5 instructing it to return as planned. Shenzhou 5, shown on a screen in the mission control center, made a gentle turnaround upon receiving the order, Xinhua said.

While in orbit, Yang spoke to his family, telling them it looked “splendid” in space. He also had a conversation with the country’s defense minister, unfurled the flags of China and the United Nations and took a nap.

Yang, an astronaut since 1998, was picked for the flight from three finalists among 14 trained candidates. His trip came after four test flights, beginning in 1999, of unmanned Shenzhou capsules.

China has had a rocketry program since the 1950s. It launched a manned space program in the 1970s amid the political upheaval of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution but later abandoned it. The program was relaunched in 1992 under the code name Project 921.

The budget for the program is secret, but foreign experts say it totals at least US$1 billion. The Shenzhou, or “Divine Vessel,” is based on the three-seat Russian Soyuz capsule, though with extensive modifications.

A day before Yang’s landing, the rocket carrying him streaked into a clear blue sky from a Gobi Desert launch pad in China’s remote northwest. The government said the capsule entered orbit 10 minutes later.

Yang hurtled around the planet for the rest of Wednesday, making a planned orbit shift in midafternoon and stopping work only to rest and eat Chinese food designed especially for space travel.

With his mission nearly half over, he spoke to ground control and his boss. “Don’t worry — I’m going to work hard to accomplish the task,” he told Defense Minister Cao Gangchuan.

Later, Yang spoke to his wife and their 8-year-old son from space, Xinhua reported. “I’m feeling very good in space, and it looks extremely splendid around here,” he told his wife, Zhang Yumei, who also works for China’s space program. And he said hello to his “dear son.”

Yang also unfurled two flags for ground control to see — China’s and the United Nations’ as well, to “highlight China’s persistent stand for peaceful exploration and exploitation of space,” the government said.

The United States and other governments congratulated China on what the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, whose Space Shuttle Columbia was lost in February, called “an important achievement in the history of human exploration.”

“The Chinese people have a long and distinguished history of exploration,” said NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe. He wished China “a continued safe human space flight program.”

In Baikonur, Kazakhstan, where the Soviet Union pioneered manned spaceflight, the first deputy head of the Russian space agency, Rosaviakosmos, said his staffers “simply welcome the event and are happy for them.” But Nikolai Moiseyev noted Russia’s involvement, too.

“Often, we are asked, ‘Did Russia nourish the Chinese cosmonauts?’ I have to say that Russia has fed all the world’s space programs,” Moiseyev said.