Although failed private space efforts were prominent in the news this week, China saw a successful return of its lunar test probe from the moon Saturday.

The eight-day trip to the moon and back launched was sent into space from Xichang Satellite Launch Center. It represented the first time in almost 40 years that a spacecraft orbited the moon and returned safely back to Earth.

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China used a Russian re-entry technique to make the safe return to Earth. The probe bounced off the Earth's atmosphere to slow its speed for re-entry, then landed by parachute on a grassy field in inner Mongolia.

It's all part of the ongoing effort by China to send a spacecraft back to the moon in 2017, gather lunar samples and return home safely. The 2017 lunar mission is believed to be a precursor to China becoming the second nation to land a man on the moon.

China already has sent men into space becoming the third nation aside from the U.S. and Russia to do so in 2003. China also has conducted a walk in space and manned a temporary space station.

The successful lunar test was aimed at testing new technologies and systems necessary for China to make the great leap forward in its Chang'e 5 program. It used a backup lunar probe from the Chang'e 3 mission with new navigational, guidance and heat shield designs. It also carried a payload from the European Space Agency.

It's been almost a year since the Chang'e 3 Jade Rabbit became the first Chinese spacecraft to land on the moon and return to Earth. That mission went through the atmosphere on a Long March 3C carrier rocket that was used again on this lunar test probe.

The latest test mission used a capsule that was a scaled-down replica of the Shenzhou capsule that carried three Chinese astronauts into space in June 2013.

Tagslunar probe, moon, Space, NASA, Chang'e-5, european space agency