China is planning to carry out explorations in deep space by sending a man to the lunar surface by 2025 and probe to Mars by 2013 and to Venus by 2015. The country is also planning to build a space station in the next ten years.

Ye Peijian, Commander in Chief of the Chang’e (lunar landing) programme and an academic at the Chinese Academy of Sciences said, "China has the full capacity to accomplish Mars exploration by 2013."

As for the lunar missions he said that the country will send probes to orbit the Moon, land and return to Earth by 2020. The work on Chang’e-2 lunar orbiter is in pre-launch testing stage and the first trail flight will be conducted by the end of this year.

China's first spaceman, Yang Liwei had said that the country will build its first orbital space station by around 2020 and it will launch the first unmanned space laboratory, Tiangong-1 next year. It will dock with Shenzhou-8 craft for finally building a space station.

China became the third nation in the world after United States and the Soviet Union in 2003 by flying a man into space in 2003.