China's three astronauts have landed safely back on Earth after a successful 68-hour mission.
The Shenzhou VII mission was seen on state television drifting gently down under a giant red and white parachute to a plain in Inner Mongolia.
It was China's third manned space mission.
Doctors rushed to open the capsule and check the men as they readjusted to gravity and recovered from the punishing return journey.
Spacewalker Zhai Zhigang was the first to emerge and was helped to a nearby folding chair, where he was greeted with flowers and applause.
Premier Wen Jiabao told mission control the three were heroes, and said their efforts had put China in an elite club of three nations that have managed a space walk.
Mr Zhai's 20-minute outing in a €3m Chinese-designed suit capped an eventful year for China in which it has both coped with the tragedy of the devastating Sichuan earthquake and revelled in the Beijing Olympics.
The ability to space walk is key to a longer-term goal of assembling a space lab and then a larger space station, and maybe one day making a landing on the moon.
