The Shenzhou XIX mission astronauts landed safely at the Dongfeng Landing Site in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region on Wednesday afternoon, wrapping up their six-month orbital journey, as the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) declared the mission a success.

At 12:17 pm (Beijing Time), the Beijing Aerospace Control Center issued a return command through the ground station, and the orbital capsule of the Shenzhou XIX spaceship separated from the return capsule, which carried the three crew members — mission commander Senior Colonel Cai Xuzhe, Lieutenant Colonel Song Lingdong and Lieutenant Colonel Wang Haoze. 

Then the brake engine ignited, and the return capsule separated from the propulsion capsule. The return capsule touched down at 1:08 pm at the Dongfeng Landing Site, located in the middle of the Gobi Desert, after flying more than nine hours on their return journey.

By 2:02 pm, the crew had all left the return capsule. They had spent 183 days in orbit and are all in good health, the CMSA said.

Their return was delayed by one day from the original schedule because of weather concerns at the Dongfeng site.

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In the following hours after the return, ground recovery personnel from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, the homeport for all of China's manned spaceflights, will conduct safety checks outside the capsule, before opening the hatch of the bell-shaped vehicle and examining the astronauts' health condition.

The Shenzhou XIX crew members will then be helped out of the capsule and sent for medical examination.

After completion of all the mandatory procedures at the landing site, the crew members will be flown back to Beijing to undergo a six-month quarantine and recuperation program, which is a standard procedure for Chinese astronauts returning from space.

The Shenzhou XIX spacecraft departed from the Tiangong space station around 4 am on Wednesday. The vessel flew into a return trajectory and gradually re-entered the Earth's atmosphere.

The CMSA said that prior to the separation from the space station, the Shenzhou XIX crew, with the assistance of the ground staff, completed various tasks such as setting the status of the space station combination, processing and transmitting the experimental data, and transferring remaining supplies.

Before setting out on their return trip, Cai's team handed over their work to a new crew, transmitted scientific experimental data back to Earth and sorted and transferred materials between the station and their spaceship.

READ MORE: Shenzhou XIX crew completes handover, returning to Earth on Tuesday

In the next six months, the Tiangong station will be manned by the Shenzhou XX trio, headed by Senior Colonel Chen Dong, who arrived at the colossal flying outpost early on Friday morning.

With Xinhua inputs