BEIJING - Chinese President Hu Jintao met Friday morning with astronauts, space scientists and engineers of the manned space docking mission, in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Shenzhou IX spacecraft, with three astronauts aboard, returned from a 13-day mission on June 29, after the crew succeeded in manually docking the spacecraft with a space lab module Tiangong-1, paving the way for building a possible space station.