His partner, Nie Haisheng, lay on his back, reading a flight manual with his earphones on. Sometimes he put aside the book and caught it before it floated too far in the weightless "room."

As judged from videos sent from orbit, the astronauts seemed relaxed on the second day of the mission. But not so much for controllers on the ground.

"I won't feel relieved of a heavy load until the spacecraft tumbles to the earth and the two astronauts walk out of their return module, smiling," said Xi Zheng, director of the Beijing Aerospace Control Center.

Another member, who identified herself only as Xie, said: "I'm prepared for several sleepless nights."

The Beijing Aerospace Control Center, which is Chinese version of the Moscow and Houston mission centers, serves as the hub of the space program.

It processes data and controls all of the country's space activities, from lift-offs of satellites to manned flights.

Control efforts on manned missions are far more sophisticated and arduous than on satellite launches, given the critical demands for massive information transmission, accuracy and safety concerns, Wang Yejuan, the center's deputy chief engineer, said yesterday.

Xi said: "We send all the commands to control Shenzhou VI from 277 seconds after it lifts off until the safe return of the two astronauts; we send directions to change and maintain the craft's orbit and readjust the craft's posture."

It takes less than two seconds for a direction to reach the spacecraft.

With his eyes blood-swollen, Xi, a former pilot, examined reams of information streaming into the center from the spacecraft and all the monitoring stations.

In all, nine ground-based stations in China and abroad, and four ships in the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans are involved in the monitoring.

"All of the data is gathered here," Xi said. "In case of emergency, contingency decisions will also be made at the center."

Rows of mission controllers and scientists either clicked on the keyboards or stared at the four large screens in the front at the flight control hall yesterday, just as they did on Wednesday, when Shenzhou VI blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.

The screens showed the movement of the module with three-dimensional simulation pictures and real-time videos fed from cameras embedded in the return module, allowing mission controllers and visitors to view the launch and flight.

Amidst all the seriousness, though, there were some light-hearted moments.

For example, at around 3:20 PM yesterday, a woman doctor asked one of the astronauts: "No 1, how much water have you drunk? How many times have you urinated?"

The ground doctors were checking the physical and mental conditions of the astronauts.

Founded in 1996, the Beijing center has developed and fine-tuned a host of technological advances that have ranked it among the world's leading space mission facilities, Xi said.

He added: "We'll live up to the expectations of the nation to guarantee the complete success of the space mission."

(China Daily October 14, 2005)