The reentry capsule of the Shenzhou XII mission, with mission commander Major General Nie Haisheng, Major General Liu Boming and Senior Colonel Tang Hongbo inside, touched down at 1:34 pm at the Dongfeng Landing Site in the Badain Jaran Desert.

The Shenzhou XII spacecraft departed China's Tiangong space station on Thursday morning, carrying three Chinese astronauts on a journey back to Earth, the China Manned Space Agency said. It said in a brief statement that the spacecraft left the station's Tianhe core module at 8:56 am.

Before their departure, the astronauts－mission commander Major General Nie Haisheng, Major General Liu Boming and Senior Colonel Tang Hongbo－configured the space station, transmitted some experimental data back to ground control and arranged materials inside the station, with assistance from ground support professionals.

The Shenzhou XII spaceship completed circumnavigation and radial rendezvous tests at 1:38 pm (Beijing Time) Thursday. The tests successfully verified the radial rendezvous technology, laying an important technical foundation for the following manned missions.

By Thursday morning, the crew had been in space for 90 days, almost two times longer than the Shenzhou XI mission, which saw Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong spend 33 days in orbit.