SIZIWANG (DORBOD), Inner Mongolia, Oct. 16 (Xinhuanet) -- Lt. Col.Yang Liwei, China's first astronaut in space, stepped out of the re-entry module after landing safely here in north China's Inner Mongolia, at 06:23 Thursday.

¡¡¡¡More than 600 people gathered at the landing site, including local residents, space mission workers, policemen and journalists.

¡¡¡¡Yang smiled and waved to his colleagues and the public in golden sunlight. He was presented flowers and ribbons of congratulation.

¡¡¡¡Joyous people carried Yang in a wheelchair to a medical vehicle10 meters away to receive medical checkup, three minutes after he got out of the cabin.

¡¡¡¡People were cheering and dancing at the landing site, many of them with tears in their eyes.

¡¡¡¡"I came here last night," said Wang Junqing, a worker at the local weather station. "I am happy that our weather service also contributed to the success of the manned spaceflight."

¡¡¡¡Yang went aboard a plane to Beijing.

¡¡¡¡"The spacecraft operates well. I feel very good and I am proud of my motherland," he said before getting on the plane.

¡¡¡¡The successful landing testifies that China has become the world's third spacefaring country, following Russia and the UnitedStates.

¡¡¡¡The recovery personnel at the landing site said that conditionsof the 38-year-old Yang were good after he spent 21 hours in space,orbiting the Earth 14 times.

¡¡¡¡Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao announced China's first manned spaceflight a "complete success" after talks with astronaut Yang Liwei upon the landing of the re-entry capsule of Shenzhou-5.

¡¡¡¡Shenzhou-5 traveled 600,000 km during the flight, realizing a centuries-old dream cherished by the Chinese nation.

¡¡¡¡In the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), a man named Wan Hu tried to send himself into the sky by lighting gunpowder-packed bamboo tubes tied to his seat. The gunpowder exploded, killing the man who has been remembered as the first Chinese attempting to fly.

¡¡¡¡The man's dream was, in fact, the dream of all the Chinese. Thecountry abounds in fairy tales about humans vs. space. One is about a woman of surpassing beauty flying to the moon after takingsome magic medicine, where she stays as the Goddess of Moon. The story of the woman named Chang'e has always been a most favorite theme in traditional Chinese painting, poetry and drama.

¡¡¡¡The dream was to be realized centuries later in New China, a China recognized as one of the fastest growing economies in the world, as a country taking giant steps towards modernization underthe reform-and-opening policy since the late 1970s and early 1980s.

¡¡¡¡In 1992, the country started a manned spaceflight program, in the wake of success in sending man-made earth satellites into space. Spacecraft of the Shenzhou series ventured, successfully, into the outer space four times from 1999 to 2002 under the program.

¡¡¡¡Yang's return to Earth from outer space signifies completion ofthe first step taken by China to implement its plans for space exploration. More steps are to follow -- attempts for space walk, rendezvous and docking of spaceships and setting up of a space lab.

¡¡¡¡Sometime from now, up in the space, high over the Earth, there will be a space station which, like Shenzhen-5 that has just made history, will be designed, built and manned by the Chinese. Enditem