Report: China Plans to Launch Moon Probe

China plans within five years to launch a probe to orbit the moon, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Saturday, citing a space program official.

The announcement came as China’s first astronaut, Yang Liwei, was in Hong Kong making his first public appearances since orbiting the Earth last month.

Since the success of Yang’s nearly 22-hour flight inside a Shenzhou 5 capsule, there has been a stream of disclosures about the ambitions of the once-secret space program.

“China is to launch its first moon-probing satellite in the next three to five years,” Xinhua said, citing an interview with Zhang Qingwei, deputy head of Yang’s delegation in Hong Kong.

Plans call eventually for landing a robot probe on the moon and retrieving samples of the surface, Xinhua said. It did not say when that would happen.

China’s space program is a key prestige project for the communist government, which launched its first satellite in 1970.

After satellites and manned space flight, a moon probe would be the “third milestone” of China’s space program, Zhang said, according to Xinhua. The moon probe would be launched aboard one of China’s Long March III A rockets, he said.

Officials say the country plans to launch another Shenzhou capsule within two years and eventually wants to send up a permanently manned space station.