BEIJING (AP) – China plans to develop a new generation of carrier rockets with
a payload capacity large enough to launch a space station, state media reported
Monday.
China attaches great prestige to its space program, seeing it as a way to
validate its claims to being one of the world's leading scientific nations.
China
launched its first manned space mission in 2003, making it the third country to
send a human into orbit on its own after Russia and the United States.
The country put two astronauts into orbit for a week in 2005
and officials have said they want to put a man on the moon and build a space
station in the next 10 or 15 years.
The payload capacity of China's Long March series of carrier
rockets will be more than doubled from 9.5 tons to 25 tons in order to advance
the country's lunar exploration program, the official Xinhua News Agency
reported, citing an official with the state-run China Aerospace Science and
Technology Corp.
The official did not say when the rockets would be ready for
launch.
The new generation of carrier rockets would have a large
enough payload from which to launch a space station, Xinhua said, citing Huang
Chunping, a Chinese aerospace expert.
On June 1, China launched a new communications satellite
into orbit to provide broader radio and television signal coverage across the
country.
The long-scheduled launch followed the failed deployment in
October of another communications satellite whose solar panels and
communications antennae did not operate properly.
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