CHINA said yesterday it will launch within weeks its first spacecraft capable of docking with a module it put into orbit last month, in what will mark a crucial test of its growing space program.

    The unmanned Shenzhou VIII spacecraft, carried by the Long March-2F rocket, will blast off in early November, State media reported, and will later try to dock with the Tiangong-1, or “Heavenly Palace-1” space laboratory module launched in September.

    Space program officials said the docking tests will provide experience for the building of a permanent manned space station around 2020.

    Xinhua news agency did not give a specific date for the launch, but said the craft was being transported to the remote Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert in Gansu Province.

    The United States will not test a new rocket to take people into space until 2017.

    Russia has said manned missions are no longer a priority for its space program, which has struggled with delays and glitches.

    China launched its second moon orbiter last year after it became in 2008 only the third country to send its astronauts walking in space outside their orbiting craft.

    It plans an unmanned moon landing and deployment of a moon rover next year, and the retrieval of lunar soil and stone samples around 2017. Scientists have talked about the possibility of sending a man to the moon after 2020. (SD-Agencies)