It's taken five hundred years, but the dragon is starting to awaken.

During the Ming Dynasty, China led the way in the Age of Exploration. Fleets commanded by Admiral Zheng-He reached the east coast of Africa and possibly the Pacific Northwest coast of North America...and then everything changed. Fearing foreign influence, the Ming emperors recalled their fleets and closed the country, which stagnated for the next half millennium.

As if it make up for lost time, China has now embarked on an aggressive program of space exploration as the China National Space Administration announces their intention to have probes on Mars by 2011. Considering this lost-and-found heritage of exploration (and the fact that rockets are a Chinese invention), none of this should come as any surprise.

"In the coming five years, China will, on the basis of its moon probes, plan deep-space exploration, focusing on lunar and Martian exploration," said CNSA chief Sun Laiyan at the 36th Scientific Assembly of Committee on Space Research in Beijing. He gave few details, however. Yesterday, senior space scientist Long Lehao stated that the Long March rocket was capable of sending satellites to any planet, including Mars. For the immediate future,  the Chang'e 1 lunar probe will be launched next year.

"It is unnecessary to wait until after we have completed the lunar mission to initiate the Martian programme. We could begin during the lunar mission," Sun said. He also assured at the conference that China intends to "actively" cooperate with  international community in deep-space endeavors.

Chinese space officials are planning to launch their first lunar orbiter, Chang 'e-l, on April 2007. This project has long been under development since early 2006 and it will utilize China's Dongfanghong III satellite platform and other technology. The said lunar orbiter will be tested at the space launch center in December, if the orbiter pass the test with flying colors, then the scheduled April 2007 launch will push through.

According to the Changjiang Daily, Luan Enjie- the director of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), the funding for the Chang 'e-l amounted to 1.4 Billion Yuan (US$ 169 Million). With this funding, one of the orbiter's task is to obtain 3-dimensional images of the lunar surface. The CNSA Director also said that the moon orbiter is part of a three-step lunar program.

After the Chang 'e-l mission, the next plan is to send an unmanned vehicle on the moon by 2010 and then collecting sample of lunar soil with the unmannded vehicle by 2020. Again, Luan said that "only after we finish the three phases can we carry out the manned satellite project to probe the moon."