Looking back at China's Shenzhou-series space mission
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The successful launch of the sixth Chinese manned spacecraft Shenzhou 11 comes nearly 17 years after China embarked on its Shenzhou-series space missions.

Shenzhou 1 spacecraft was launched in the fall of 1999 and came back to Earth following a stay of more than 21 hours in outer space.

The flight was prolonged to more than 6 days when China conducted the second Shenzhou mission two years later.

The third and fourth missions in 2002 maintained the same flight time as the second one.

The first-ever Chinese manned space mission Shenzhou-5 arrived in 2003, making Yang Liwei, the first Chinese astronaut to travel to space, a household name after he stayed away from our own planet for less than a day.

Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng joined their predecessor Yang as Chinese national aerospace heroes after concluding a nearly-5-day space mission with Shenzhou 6 in 2005.

The commander of the Shenzhou-11 mission Jing Haipeng made his first trip to space with two colleagues in 2008 when China launched Shenzhou 7.

The three astronauts returned to the ground after circling the Earth 45 times.

China first tried the docking technology in 2011 when the unmanned Shenzhou 8 physically connected with the country's first prototype space station Tiangong 1 at an altitude of more than 340 kilometers.

A woman named Liu Yang became the first female Chinese astronaut to travel to space in 2012 when China conducted the 9th Shenzhou mission.

Another woman Wang Yaping followed suit in the 10th mission a year after that, giving lectures on physics to school kids while she was in outer space.

Author： 　　　Source：CRI　　　 Editor：Yang Fan