BEIJING (AP) — China's space agency says it worked with NASA to collect data from the far side of the moon.

The state-run China Daily said this was the first such collaboration since an American law banned joint space projects with China that do not have prior congressional approval.

The deputy director of the national space agency, Wu Yanhua, said Monday that NASA shared information about its lunar orbiter satellite in hopes of monitoring the landing of the Chang'e 4 spacecraft, which made China the first country to land on the far side of the moon earlier this month.

Wu said China in turn shared the time and coordinates of Chang'e 4's scheduled landing. He said NASA's satellite did not catch the precise moment of landing, but took photographs of the area afterward.