BEIJING - The Shenzhou XX mission crew returned to Earth on Friday afternoon, nine days later than their scheduled landing, ending an extended stay aboard the Tiangong space station after a suspected debris hit left their spaceship with a cracked window.

A re-entry capsule carrying the three astronauts — mission commander Senior Colonel Chen Dong and crew members Colonel Chen Zhongrui and Colonel Wang Jie — touched down on the Dongfeng Landing Site in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region at 4:40 pm, after flying more than five hours on the Earth-bound journey.

Next, ground recovery personnel from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, the homeport for all of China's manned spaceflights so far, will make initial safety checks outside the capsule, and then open the hatch of the bell-shaped vehicle to conduct a preliminary examination of the astronauts' health condition.

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Chen Dong and his teammates rode on the Shenzhou XXI spaceship's re-entry capsule, which was originally designated for the Shenzhou XXI mission crew, after their own vessel was found to have tiny cracks on a viewport window.

They were originally scheduled to fly back on Nov 5 after staying at the space station for six months.

Their successors, three astronauts in the Shenzhou XXI mission, arrived at the Chinese space station on Nov 1 and took over the massive orbital outpost on Nov 4.