The touchdown on schedule late Sunday of Shenzhou IV on a snow-covered plain in Inner Mongolia after a 162-hour mission proves China is nearly ready for its first manned spaceflight later this year, experts say.

"The return of the spaceship represents a complete success of the fourth test flight of the program, which began in 1992," the Xinhua news agency quoted unnamed experts in charge of the program as saying.

"The successful launch and return of Shenzhou IV shows China's technology for manned flights is becoming increasingly mature, which lays a solid foundation for eventually sending up manned flights."

President Jiang Zemin congratulated the scientists behind China's space program as tracker vehicles and helicopters located the capsule and prepared to transport it to Beijing within "a couple of days", the China Daily said.

Once in the Chinese capital, it will be analysed and experimental samples conducted inside.

Hu Shixiang, vice-director of China's manned space program, said Shenzhou IV circled the earth 108 times and successfully performed several hundred moves, including unfolding its solar panels.

The China Daily said all the instruments and equipment onboard performed well, completing all the designated tests and gathering a large amount of data.

Officials have said it was launched with all the prerequisites for a manned flight and even had spare clothes that astronauts might need to change into.

"All the systems for manned space flights, including an astronaut system and life-support sub-system have been fitted on the spaceship and tested," Xinhua said.

Fourteen Chinese astronauts -- picked from thousands of air force pilots -- have undergone training on Shenzhou craft.

Shenzhou IV's re-entry module detached itself from the orbital module and returned to earth at 7.16 pm (1116 GMT) Sunday. The orbital module will continue circling the earth and conducting experiments, according to scientists at the Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Centre, official media said.

The United States and the former Soviet Union are the only other nations to independently send a human into orbit, and China has long been playing catch-up, analysts say.

"Shenzhou and a man in space is all about prestige," said Laurence Nardon, a space expert at the French Insititute for International Relations in Paris.

The Shanghai Aerospace Bureau's director Yuan Jie has said that compared with the three previous unmanned space capsules China has launched, Shenzhou IV was the most sophisticated and its success opened the door for a manned mission later this year.

Not content with a man in space, senior Chinese officials have also made it clear a lunar expedition is on the cards.

At the Space Summit in the Indian city of Bangalore on Saturday, Guo Baozhu, vice administrator of the Chinese National Space Academy, said a project to explore the moon was under consideration.

He said China has 12 different launch vehicles and a future program will include an eight-satellite constellation for disaster monitoring, data relay satellites and a new satellite to broadcast directly to homes.

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