China’s first reusable spacecraft landed back on Earth on Sunday, after two days in orbit, the nation’s space authorities announced.

Little is known about the experimental craft but it was launched on a Long March 2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China’s northwestern Gobi desert on Friday.

The vessel landed back at the Jiuquan site on Sunday, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

The successful test of reusable spacecraft technology will cut the cost of sending Chinese astronauts and payloads out of the Earth’s atmosphere, and elevates Beijing’s standing in the global space race, according to state media.

In the past, China’s space program has relied on single-use components that resulted in space-junk or involved parts being allowed to fall and disintegrate in the atmosphere.

For now, China’s spacecraft piggybacks on a rocket.

Other space powers such as the United States and Russia have launched reusable spacecraft of different types.

The U.S. military operates the Boeing-manufactured X-37, a robotic winged craft that also uses a launch vehicle to get into space and returns and lands as a space-plane. The X-37′s latest mission, its sixth, launched on an Atlas V rocket in May this year.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has developed reusable rocket technology, which promises massive savings in operating costs and reduced waste.

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