China's second manned spacecraft Shenzhou-6 is to return to the Earth early Monday morning, the ground control center announced Sunday evening.

The spacecraft, blasted off Wednesday morning with Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng aboard, was operating smoothly and the taikonauts were preparing for the touch down, according to the Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Center.

The dual crew have changed back to white space suits and closed the door of the re-entry capsule, according to the ground control center.

The mission has accomplished planned experiments and accumulated valuable technical data and experiences for the development of China's manned space program since the spacecraft blasted off Wednesday, said Chinese experts.

Experts said that the experiments on the spacecraft's anti-disturbance capacity, physical responses to the space environment and the tests on the functions of various equipments produced satisfying results.

The spacecraft is scheduled to touch down at the primary landing site in Siziwang Banner (county) of Inner Mongolia, north China, where full preparations have been made to ensure the safety of the crew, said Hou Ying, chief designer of the landing site system.

The system is composed of five subsystems of the primary and secondary landing site, land emergency rescue, marine emergency rescue, telecommunications and medical monitoring and guarantee.

As for the Shenzhou-6 space mission, the prior task for the search and rescue crew is to detect the re-entry module in the sky in an effort to rescue the astronauts and retrieve the capsule as soon as possible, said Cai Yougu, an officer heading a search and rescue team.

However, China had focused on ground search for the retrieval of China's previous five Shenzhou spacecraft in the past.

Cai noted that the search and rescue for Shenzhou-6 will face some difficulties, but a number of schemes have been worked out to ensure the success of the operation.

The national weather station said Sunday that the weather conditions in the next two days are favorable in the primary landing site for a safe return of the Shenzhou-6.

No rains, high visibility, and light and steady breezes are expected in the coming two days, said Yang Guiming, senior engineer of China Central Meteorological Station.

Source: Xinhua