After all the mandatory procedures were completed at the landing site, Ye and his crew members were flown back to Beijing. They will undergo a six-month quarantine and recuperation program, which is a standard procedure for Chinese astronauts returning from space.

The experimental samples brought to Earth by the Shenzhou XVIII crew have also been transported to Beijing and will be delivered to scientists after initial examination, said the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Ye and his teammates, who were members of the seventh crew to inhabit Tiangong, had taken over the space station in late April from their Shenzhou XVII peers.

During their orbital stay, the trio conducted two spacewalks to mount and fine-tune equipment outside Tiangong, and carried out a lot of scientific and technological tasks.

The Shenzhou XVIII mission was the second space journey for Ye and the first for his two teammates.

Ye now holds the record of spending the longest time in orbit — a total of 374 days across two missions.

Senior Colonel Tang Hongbo held the record, having spent a total of 279 days in orbit during the Shenzhou XII and Shenzhou XVII missions.

At 4:12 pm on Sunday, the Shenzhou XVIII spaceship departed from Tiangong and flew on a return trajectory before gradually reentering the Earth's atmosphere.

Before setting out on their return journey, the astronauts handed over their work to the Shenzhou XIX crew, transmitted scientific experimental data back to Earth, and sorted and transferred materials between the space station and their spaceship.

Over the next six months, Tiangong will be manned by Shenzhou XIX mission commander Senior Colonel Cai Xuzhe and crew members Lieutenant Colonel Song Lingdong and Lieutenant Colonel Wang Haoze, who arrived at the colossal space station on Wednesday afternoon.

zhaolei@chinadaily.com.cn