China will finish all its unmanned lunar probing activities around 2017 and will then start a program to send astronauts to the moon, Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist of China's lunar probe program, has said.

Ouyang, an academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), was quoted by Wednesday's Beijing Morning Post as saying that the first lunar satellite, Chang'e-1, will be launched at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China's Sichuan Province in 2007.

Delivering a speech at elite Beijing University on Tuesday evening, Ouyang said, "The program is now well under way as planned, and we have successfully finished prototypes for most instruments."

The lunar probe program will be accomplished in three steps, namely lunar orbiting from 2004 to 2007, lunar landing from 2007 to 2012 and return from the moon from 2012 to 2017, according to Xu Dazhe, deputy general manager of China Aerospace Science and Technology Group Ltd..

The total cost for the first stage will be 1.4 billion yuan (about US$175 million).

The State Council, China's central government, approved the country's first lunar probe program in 2004. A lunar probe engineering center was set up in Beijing in August this year by the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense.

China's first lunar satellite was designed to obtain three-dimensional images of the lunar surface, analyze the content of useful elements and materials, and probe the depth of lunar soil and the space environment between the earth and the moon.

According to the design, the satellite system consists of a satellite platform and payload, which will be based on China's Dongfanghong 3 satellite systems and other mature satellite technology. The satellite will be 2,350 kg in weight with 130 kg of payload, and will orbit the moon for one year.

(Xinhua News Agency December 15, 2005)