(XINHUA)

A staff member opens the hatch of the re-entry capsule of the Shenzhou 8 spacecraft at a landing site in Siziwang Banner in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on November 17.

The unmanned spacecraft returned to Earth after completing China's first-ever space docking mission.

Launched on November 1, the Shenzhou 8 rendezvoused and docked with the Tiangong-1 space lab module two days later. The conjoined vessels orbited Earth for 12 days and conducted another docking after a brief disengagement on November 14.

The Tiangong-1, which blasted off on September 29, will remain in orbit to await future docking attempts with the Shenzhou 9 and Shenzhou 10 spacecraft next year. At least one of the two scheduled docking missions will take astronauts into space.