China to launch first manned space flight

China intends to launch its first manned spacecraft later this year, the government has announced.

Yuan Jie, director of the Shanghai Aerospace Bureau, revealed the plan after the launch of the unmanned Shenzhou IV spacecraft, which was orbiting the Earth yesterday, three days into what is expected to be a seven-day mission.

Shenzhou IV, which blasted off before dawn on Monday from a rocket base in the Gobi desert, carried equipment for assessing the viability of manned flights, the government said. It was the second launch in less than 10 months.

The mission will test life-support and other systems with an eye toward manned missions. Astronauts picked from the ranks of fighter pilots in China's air force have been training for several years. Zhang Qingwei, president of the state-run China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, which manufactured the Shenzhou IV capsule, said earlier this week that a manned flight was "just around the corner" if no problems were reported during the current flight. China News Service, a government news agency, said: "China's Shenzhou V will send a person into space in the latter half of this year."

The government has cast its space programme as a symbol of national pride, much as the United States did with Nasa's Apollo launches during the space race of the 1960s against the Soviet Union.

Earlier this week, President Jiang Zemin called for the continuing development of China's space programme, declaring the latest launch a "great victory" and implying that manned flights were not far off. He encouraged aerospace personnel to "redouble their efforts and work in a pioneering spirit to make more contributions to the peaceful development of outer space".

Only the United States and Russia have sent human beings into space on their own. Astronauts from other nations have been in space but only by collaborating with either Washington or Moscow.