China is eying development of a Saturn V-class booster. This hefty rocket is under consideration according to Liang Xiaohong, vice president of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology. As reported by China's Xinhua News Agency, the jumbo rocket's "carrying capacity factor" would lift a maximum payload of 25 tons. This booster, the Long March 5, is expected to be able to send lunar rovers, large satellites and space stations into space after 2014.
In the March 3 Xinhua report, Liang said "the rocket is currently China's best with the largest payload among the nation's rocket lineup" and was expected to deliver astronauts onto the Moon. Long March 5 is most likely to rocket away from Wenchang, the southernmost island province of Hainan, where a new satellite launch center is now under construction. That spaceport is slated to be operational in 2014.
Xinhua also reported that China's launch of an unmanned space module, Tiangong-1, the "Heavenly Palace" has slipped into 2011. That 8.5 ton module will be used to demonstrate the country's first space docking and is regarded as an essential step toward building a space station. Earlier, it was reported that the Heavenly Palace would be orbited by year's end. However, technical reasons have been cited that have pushed its launch into 2011.
The Heavenly Palace would be transformed into a human-carrying space lab after experimental dockings with three Shenzhou spacecraft, which are expected to be put into space within two years following the module's launch, said Qi Faren, former chief designer of China's Shenzhou spaceships.
Lastly, according to space officials in China and specialists attending last week's Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas, Chang'e-2 is being readied for an October liftoff. Chang'e-2 is a robotic lunar orbiter, similar to Chang'e-1, but will carry several science instrument improvements. It is also slated to orbit the Moon at a much lower altitude.