The Yuanwang-3 tracking ship off the coast of Namibia picked up the spacecraft's signal at 18:49 UT, and commanded retro-fire. This time the spacecraft accepted the command, which probably saved the entire program. The spacecraft passed out of range of the tracking ship nine minutes later. Its trajectory arced over Africa, skimmed the coast of the Arabian peninsula, and then over Pakistan, before re-entering over Tibet.

Following re-entry, the drogue chute deployed at an altitude of 30 km with the capsules soft-landing rockets firing 1.5 m above the ground. The capsule landed at 41 deg N, 105 deg E, (415 km East of its launch pad and 110 km north-west of Wuhai, Inner Mongolia), at November 20 19:41 UT. The spacecraft had completed 14 orbits of the earth in 21 hours and 11 minutes.

After the flight it was reported that not a single primary spacecraft system had failed, so none of the back-up systems were tested. The touchdown point was only 12 km from the predicted position. The soft landing braking rocket worked well - no damage was found to the capsule structure, heat shield or the seals. The jettisoned heat shield, parachute hatch, and drogue chute were found within 5 km of the landing point. The orbital module, which separated prior to retro-fire, continued in controlled flight until 27 November, when it decayed and reentered the atmosphere. A primary payload returned by Shenzhou were 100 kg of seeds, considered valuable to the Chinese after one day of exposure to the space environment. The Chinese space tracking fleet returned from the Shenzhou mission between 12 December 1999 and 4 January 2000. During their 259-day voyage, the four ships traveled 185,000 km and experienced some heavy seas while tracking and communicating with the Shenzhou for a total of 150 minutes.Additional Details: Shenzhou(18859).

• Bay 1-2: External airlock/ODS
• Bay 7-8: ORU Carrier (Spacelab pallet). Carried Hubble replacement spares arranged as follows: COPE protective enclosure with three RSU gyros, a new solid state recorder, and an S-band transmitter; LOPE enclosure with an HST-486 computer and voltage improvement kit; ASIPE enclosure with a spare HST-486 and spare RSU; FSIPE enclosure with a replacement FGS-2 fine guidance sensor; and NPE enclosure with New Outer Blanket Layer insulation.
• Bay 11: Flight Servicing System (FSS). Contained the BAPS (Berthing and Positioning System) used to dock with the aft end of the Hubble Space Telescope.
• Bay 8: APC carrier with foot restraint
• Bay 12: APC carrier with HST foot retstraint