Observer Report
Beijing
A national flag of Pakistan which returned after the space voyage was handed back to Pakistan Ambassador to China, Naghmana A Hashmi held at China Academy of Space Tech-nology (CAST) here on Friday.
The national flag was sent to outer space onboard Tian’he on May 5, 2020 and re-entered Earth on May 8. The space module was launched into outer space by a Long March 5B rocket.
This outer space journey is part of China’s endeavours to develop a new generation space station by China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).
The Embassy of Pakistan in China had handed over the national flag for the space voyage to CMSA in Beijing on February 11, 2020. In today’s ceremony held for the ‘hatch opening’ of Tian’he spacecraft module, Hao Chun, Director General CMSA, handed back the flag to Ambassador Hashmi. Speaking on the occasion, Ambassador Hashmi congratulated CMSA, CAST and other Chinese research institutions for the suc-cessful mission of Tian’he. Recalling excellent bilateral cooperation between the two countries in outer space ventures, Ambassador Hashmi referred to launching of PRSS-1 and PakTES-1 satellites in July 2018. The two sides are engaged in regular technology transfer, and ex-change of experts and delegations. Ambassador Hashmi hoped that China and Pakistan would further build on their cooperation in space exploration, leading to the travel of first Pakistani astronaut to space in 2022. For this purpose, Pakistan and China signed an Agreement for Co-operation in Human Space Flight Activities in April 2019.
