China is making its presence felt in the space industry with the launching in November of its first spacecraft capable of docking with a module that was earlier put into the orbit.

The unmanned spacecraft, Shenzhou-8, will be carried by the Long March-2F rocket, and will try to dock with the Tiantong-1, or "Heavenly Palace-1" space laboratory module which China launched in September.

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

Aside from the launching of the space-docking craft, China space officials said it plans an unmanned moon landing and deployment of a moon rover in 2012, the retrieval of lunar soil and stone samples around 2017, and the possibility of sending a man to the moon after 2020.

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

China is jostling with neighbors Japan and India for a bigger presence in space but some observers have become wary about the involvement of its military in space projects.

Beijing, however, says its aims are peaceful, and that the involvement of its military is natural given the magnitude of the undertaking.