Russian President Boris Yeltsin sent a message to Chinese President Jiang Zemin to congratulate China on the successfully launch of the "Shenzhou" automatic spaceship, said the Russian Presidential Press Service on Sunday.

"Russia is pleased by successes of friendly China in the high-tech aerospace sphere and wishes new achievements to Your country, " Yeltsin said in the message.

China successfully launched its first experimental spacecraft several days ago. The spacecraft and carrier rocket were made by China itself.

The launch was part of the country's manned space flight program. The space vehicle, named "Shenzhou" by President Jiang Zemin, was launched with a new model of "Long March" rocket on November 20 at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China's Gansu Province and landed smoothly in the central Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in north China the next day.

As another milestone in China's astronautical history, the successful launching and retrieval of the spaceship marks the country's new major breakthrough in manned space flight technology.

Manned space flight technology is the most difficult one in the aerospace area. In the past, the United States and Russia were the only countries that had this technology. (Xinhua)