Tech China weekly highlights

BEIJING, Nov. 29 (Xinhua) -- The following are the highlights of China's major technology news from the past week:

CHANG'E-5 PROBE

China's Chang'e-5 probe decelerated and entered the lunar orbit on Saturday, completing a vital step on its way to collect and return moon samples, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced.

After flying about 112 hours from Earth, an engine on the probe ignited when it was 400 km away from the surface of the moon at 8:58 p.m. and shut down after about 17 minutes, the CNSA said.

The probe performed the braking without incident and entered the lunar orbit successfully, according to the real-time monitoring data.

5G BASES

China had launched more than 700,000 5G base stations, with over 180 million terminal connections, as of October this year.

Liu Liehong, vice minister of industry and information technology, said that the country's 5G technology is seeing accelerated integration with the real economy, with an increasing number of terminals and more fields of application, such as smart manufacturing, health, energy and the agricultural sector.

NEW GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH SHIP

A new geophysical research ship has passed sea trial and anchored at a port in south China's Guangdong Province, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) on Wednesday.

The scientific research ship, SHI YAN 6, began the sea trial on Nov. 10 to test its 62 performance indicators including control system debugging, diesel engine operation, underwater radiated noise, cabin vibration and noise as well as speed and stability.