Timeline of China's top 10 space achievements of past decade

7. Nov 24, 2020

The Chang'e 5 robotic mission is launched from Wenchang and successfully lands on the moon on Dec 1. The mission brings 1,731 grams of lunar rocks and soil back to Earth on Dec 17, achieving a historic accomplishment about 44 years after the last lunar substances were brought back. The 23-day mission made China the third country to retrieve lunar samples, after the United States and the former Soviet Union.

8. July 23, 2020

The Tianwen 1 mission, the nation's first independent interplanetary exploration endeavor, is launched from Wenchang. The spacecraft consists of two major components－a rover named Zhurong and an unnamed orbiter. It travels more than 470 million kilometers before entering Mars' orbit in February 2021. Zhurong touches down on the planet on May 15, 2021, and begins to travel on Martian soil a week later. To date, the rover has traveled nearly 2,000 meters and obtained a great deal of scientific data.