A Chinese spacecraft yesterday successfully completed the country’s first manual docking in orbit, a milestone in an ambitious programme to build a space station by the end of the decade.

Manual docking is a significant step for China’s manned space programme

The Shenzhou-9 spacecraft linked with the Tiangong-1 module just over a week into a manned space mission, following an automatic docking last Monday.

“The success of the manual docking mission represents a major breakthrough. It was a precise and perfect docking,” Wu Ping, spokesman for China’s manned space programme, told a news conference in Beijing.

Veteran astronaut Liu Wang used a joystick-like device to carry out the manoeuvre, with state media describing him as “threading the needle”.

The move was the main goal of the 13-day Shenzhou (Divine Vessel) mission, testing the docking technique needed to be able to construct a space station – which China aims to do by 2020.

“The manual docking is a significant step for China’s manned space programme,” chief designer Zhou Jianping told the official Xinhua news agency.

“China has fully grasped... docking technologies that are essential to building a space station,” he said.

Beijing sees its space programme as a symbol of its global stature, growing technical expertise, and the Communist Party’s success in turning around the fortunes of the once poverty-stricken nation.

China will invest around a total of around19 billion yuan (some 2.3 billion euro) in Shenzhou missions 7 to 10, Ms Wu said, at a time when the US scales back manned space exploration.

The manual docking came the same day a manned Chinese submersible set a national record for a deep-sea dive by dropping more than 7,000 metres into the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, an achievement also hailed by state media.

The two spacecraft first came together in an automatic docking on June 18, and several hours later the three astronauts on board Shenzhou-9 entered the experimental Tiangong-1 (Heavenly Palace) module – a first for China.

Earlier yesterday, the two vessels separated in preparation for the manual docking, which state media originally said would take place around noon (0400 GMT), although it was not completed until roughly 45 minutes later.

Three hours after the docking, the three astronauts re-entered the Tiangong-1 to continue research on China’s fourth manned space mission.