China successfully launches first lunar return test mission

China has successfully launched its first test return orbiter for lunar mission, it has been reported.

It used an unmanned spacecraft to test technologies to be used in the Chang'e-5, a future probe that would conduct the country's first moon mission with a return to Earth.

The lunar orbiter was launched atop an advanced Long March-3C rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China's Sichuan Province.

The test spacecraft separated from its carrier rocket and entered the expected the orbit shortly after the liftoff, according to the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense.

The mission would be to obtain experimental data and validate re-entry technologies such as guidance, navigation and control, heat shield and trajectory design for a future touch-down on the moon by Chang'e-5, which has been expected to be sent to the moon, collect samples and return to Earth in 2017.

It was the first time China has conducted a test involving a half-orbiter around the moon at a height of 380,000 kilometers before having the spacecraft return to Earth. The test orbiter was a precursor to the last phase of a three-step moon probe project, a lunar sample return mission.