China's State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense on Saturday announced new progress in the country's moon exploration program.

A re-entry vehicle, launched last October as an experimental aircraft in preparation for the third phase lunar mission, has finished testing technologies necessary for Chang'e 5, a future space probe that will return to Earth with soil samples from the moon.

The re-entry vehicle, created for test purposes, will continue to carry out new operations, to ensure the reliability of technologies that will be deployed during the next lunar exploration.