BEIJING  As the nation held its collective breath, China’s first astronaut, Yang Liwei, floated back to the motherland, having orbited Earth 14 times in the Shenzhou 5, or Divine Capsule.

It was October 2003, and the national broadcaster CCTV carried live coverage of the momentous event, from Mr. Yang’s famous pleasantries uttered in space  “I feel good”  to the instant that workers opened the capsule door to reveal the pale but smiling face of a hero, offering irrefutable evidence that China’s maiden manned space voyage had gone off without a hitch.

Or had it?

In a lecture he gave to a group of journalism students last month, a top official at Xinhua, the state news agency, said that the mission was not so picture-perfect. The official, Xia Lin, described how a design flaw had exposed the astronaut to excessive G-force pressure during re-entry, splitting his lip and drenching his face in blood. Startled but undaunted by Mr. Yang’s appearance, the workers quickly mopped up the blood, strapped him back in his seat and shut the door. Then, with the cameras rolling, the cabin door swung open again, revealing an unblemished moment of triumph for all the world to see.

The content of Mr. Xia’s speech, transcribed and posted online by someone who attended the May 15 lecture at Tianjin Foreign Studies University, has become something of a sensation in recent days, providing the Chinese a rare insight into how their news is stage-managed for mass consumption.