This Day, That Year: Feb 20

Editor's note: This year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China.

On Feb 20, 1968, the China Academy of Space Technology was established as the main spacecraft development and production facility in China.

Two years after its foundation, China successfully sent its first satellite, Dongfanghong 1, into orbit in April 1970, making the country the fifth to achieve independent launch capability.

In the decades that followed, with launches of more orbiters, probes and taikonauts, the country has been rapidly establishing itself as a space power.

An item from China Daily on May 11, 2017, showed engineers from the academy working on the research and development of Shijian 13, the first Chinese-made high-throughput satellite.

In 1998, the Taikonaut Corps of the People's Liberation Army was established. About six manned spaceflights have been conducted.

China launched its first manned space mission in 2003, becoming the third country in the world to independently develop manned spaceflight, after Russia and the United States.

Yang Liwei became well-known as the country's first taikonaut in space after orbiting the Earth 14 times and traveling some 600,000 kilometers in space in 21 hours.

China started sending robotic probes to the moon in 2007 and has carried out several lunar missions since then. It landed the Chang'e 3 probe, which carried the first Chinese lunar rover, on the moon in December 2013.

On Jan 2, the Chinese spacecraft Chang'e 4 made a historic landing on the far side of the moon.

Last year marked the first time China had launched more rockets into orbit than any other country in any given year.

China saw 39 orbital launches in 2018, equaling the nation's total space missions in the 1990s.