NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe said the launch of a Shenzhou V manned spacecraft was "an important achievement in the history of human exploration."

"China, after Russia and the United States, is only the third nation to successfully launch humans into space," he said in a statement.

"The Chinese people have a long and distinguished history of exploration."

But as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration struggles to get its own space shuttle program back on track after the Columbia disaster, O'Keefe added: NASA wishes China a continued safe human space flight program."

US shuttle flights are not expected to resume until late 2004. The US space agency was strongly criticised following the disintegration of Columbia on re-entry into the atmosphere February 1.

The State Department revealed that China had accepted a US offer of collision avoidance data to ensure that its craft didn't collide with 10,000 or so objects in orbit, including US satellites.

The data is regularly made available to the Russian manned space program.

"We congratulate the Chinese people on the successful launch of their first astronaut into space," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.

"This is a historic achievement and we applaud China's success in becoming only the third country to launch people into space."

A Long March II F rocket carrying the manned capsule blasted off from the Gobi desert in northern China's Inner Mongolia at 9:00 am (0100 GMT) for a 21-hour flight that will see the craft orbit the Earth 14 times.

Reflecting official Chinese pride, People's Liberation Army Lieutenant Colonel Yang Liwei, who was at the controls, unfurled China's five-star national flag after he reached space, Xinhua news agency reported.

SPACE.WIRE