China's Shenzhou VII space capsule is preparing to head back to Earth after a successful mission orbiting the planet.
The three-man crew conducted experiments said to be crucial to the country's space programme.
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During the brief operation, broadcast live on national television, fighter pilot Zhai Zhigang emerged from the capsule to wave a Chinese flag.
Mr Zhai, 42, stayed outside the capsule for 15 minutes while his two fellow astronauts stayed in the spacecraft.
The exercise was seen as key to China's ambition to build an orbiting station in the next few years.
Zhai Zhigang and the other two astronauts on the Shenzhou VII craft are due to land around 1740 (0940 GMT) in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
Pride
Mr Zhai wore a Chinese-made spacesuit thought to have cost between Ј5m and Ј20m ($10m-$40m) for the space walk.
The "yuhangyuan" (astronaut) was tethered to the capsule with an umbilical cable.
President Hu Jintao spoke to the astronauts at the Beijing Aerospace Control Center for the Shenzhou-VII mission, state news agency Xinhua reported.
"Your country and your fellow citizens thank you for your devotion to the space programme," he told them.
The Shenzhou VII capsule soared into orbit on a Long March II-F rocket from Jiuquan spaceport in north-west China on 25 September.
China became only the third nation after the United States and Russia to independently put a man in space when Yang Liwei, another fighter pilot, went into orbit on the Shenzhou V mission in October 2003.
Two years later, Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng completed a five-day flight on Shenzhou VI.
Chinese media report that this latest mission is the "most critical step" in the country's "three-step" space programme.
These stages are: sending a human into orbit, docking spacecraft together to form a small laboratory and, ultimately, building a large space station.
The Shenzhou VIII and IX missions are expected to help set up a space laboratory complex in 2010.
China launched an unmanned Moon probe last year about one month after rival Japan blasted its own lunar orbiter into space.
(BBC)
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