China Space Station welcomes foreign astronauts to visit and join Chinese astronauts in making more positive contributions to exploring the universe and building a community with a shared future for mankind, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said on Monday.

Wang Wenbin made the remarks at a regular press briefing when answering questions about China’s attitude towards international space cooperation.

“We are deeply inspired by the successful landing of the return capsule of the Shenzhou-13 manned spaceship. The Shenzhou-13 mission marks a breakthrough in China’ s manned space endeavor, setting many firsts with various highlights. All these outcomes mean that China has achieved comprehensive breakthroughs in the key technologies of its space station construction, laying a solid foundation for the task of construction in the next phase,” Wang said.

The spokesperson said that to explore the unknown universe and develop space technology is a common cause of mankind which calls for the collaboration of countries. International cooperation is the trend in space development.

He said that since the inception and implementation of the China manned space engineering program, China has followed the principles of peaceful use, equality, mutual benefit and common development.

“It signed cooperation agreements and carried out cooperation projects in various forms with France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Pakistan, and many space agencies or organizations including the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs and the European Space Agency, with fruitful outcomes. China Space Station is the first of its kind open to all UN member states. So far nine projects from 17 countries and 23 entities have been included in the first batch of selected projects for China Space Station science experiment,” he added.

“At present, we are working on the first batch of international cooperation projects for China Space Station in collaboration with UNOOSA, which hopefully will see the beginning of experiment and research in space at the end of this year,” Wang said.

“We stand ready to conduct more international cooperation and exchanges with countries and regions committed to the peaceful use of outer space,” he added.