The modest timetable, published by the China Daily, is in sharp contrast to much more ambitious plans previously reported in the state press, including a mission to Mars.

China is pursuing a three-stage program which will take about 20 years and culminate in sending a robot to the moon, the paper said.

By contrast, it took just eight years from when US President John F. Kennedy stated the ambition to put a man on the moon until it actually happened in 1969.

Although China is measuring its moon program in decades, not years, the China Daily Monday reported new breakthroughs in its lunar research.

Scientists have made advances in designing the orbit of a satellite which is to circle the moon to examine its surface and geography, marking the first stage of the three-stage lunar program.

The second stage will be to land a device on the moon, followed by the dispatch of a robot in the third stage, according to the paper.

China has previously said on repeated occasions that it plans to put a man into orbit some time this year, becoming the third country in the world to do so after the United States and the former Soviet Union.

SPACE.WIRE