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Zhang Kejian, head of the China National Space Administration,
did not provide further detail in his opening remarks at a
ceremony for China's space day in the eastern city of Nanjing.
China has made space exploration a top priority in recent years,
aiming to establish a programme operating thousands of space
flights a year and carrying tens of thousands of tonnes of cargo
and passengers by 2045.
The European Space Agency last year signed a deal worth 129
million euros ($156 million) to build a spacecraft for a joint
project with NASA examining how to deflect an asteroid heading
for Earth.
China is pushing forward a mission where one space probe will
land on a near-Earth asteroid to collect samples, fly back
toward Earth to release a capsule containing the samples, and
then orbit another comet, the official Xinhua news agency
reported, citing Ye Peijian, an academic at the Chinese Academy
of Sciences.
The mission could take about a decade to complete, Ye said.
China and Russia signed a memorandum of understanding last month
to set up an international lunar research station.
($1 = 0.8265 euros)
(Reporting by Roxanne Liu and Shivani Singh; editing by Mike
Harrison and Jason Neely)
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