Chinese space capsule returns to Earth

BBC : China’s Shenzhou 8 spacecraft returned to Earth today, after a 17-day mission in which it performed the nation’s first docking maneuvers with China’s mini space lab, Tiangong 1 . Beijing sees the dockings as the next phase in its step-by-step approach to acquiring the skills of human spaceflight operations, writes Jonathan Amos for the BBC. China aims to launch a manned mission in 2012. By 2020 it hopes to start building a 60-ton space station, considerably smaller than the 400-ton International Space Station but a remarkable achievement for a single country nevertheless.