A major event marking International Moon Day, observed annually on July 20, kicked off in Harbin, northeast China, on Saturday.

Themed "Moon Village 2050: A New Home for Humanity," the event featured keynote addresses by space experts, panel discussions and the awards ceremony for the Moon Station 2050 Global Innovation Competition.

CGTN journalist Zhao Chenchen hosted the event, delving into China's ambitious goal of establishing an international lunar research station by 2050 with leading experts in the field.

"I think many people have waited a long, long time ago [for the station]," Sandra Hauplik-Meusburger, academician of the International Academy of Astronautics, told CGTN. "It's also a stepping stone toward deep space exploration."

"We have found water on the southern pole of the moon," said Nasr Al-Sahhaf, chairman of the International Moon Day Group. "We would like to build a laboratory so that we can extract this water and build something from it."

"We have to think globally," Dumitru-Dorin Prunariu, president of the Space Explorer Association in Romania, told CGTN. "We have to think about the future of humanity, not only of ourselves as individuals."

Tech Breakdown: A history of China's lunar exploration in 3 minutes

The Moon Station 2050 Global Innovation Competition, a new international initiative co-organized by the Harbin Institute of Technology, the China Aerospace Society and the International Lunar Village Association, drew 189 entries from 45 countries, highlighting young scholars' passion for lunar exploration.

Designated by the United Nations in 2021, International Moon Day commemorates the historic Apollo 11 mission, which landed the first humans on the moon on July 20, 1969. To mark this year's observance, the UN released six stamps and three souvenir sheets, one of which features China's Chang'e lunar missions.