Although there is no official timetable yet for China's moon landing, scientists are researching a new powerful carrier rocket with a lift-off thrust of 3,000 tons, Liang Xiaohong, vice-president of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, told China Daily on Thursday.

"The heavy-thrust launcher's lift-off thrust will be three times that of the Long March-5, China's current largest launcher," said Liang, who is also a member of the 11th CPPCC national committee.

The large-thrust Long March-5 launch vehicle has a lift-off thrust of 1,000 tons, which enables it to send a maximum payload of 25 tons to the near-Earth orbit and a payload of 10 tons to the higher geo-stationary orbit. Designed for transporting heavyweight satellites and space stations, it is slated to take off in 2014, according to Liang.

Compared to the Long March-5, the heavy-thrust launcher will be more powerful, but its payload capacity is still under discussion, he said.

The Long March-5 is also likely to be used in the preparatory stage of a future moon landing, he added.

China is currently studying the feasibility of a moon landing, despite US President Barack Obama's decision to kill NASA's $100-billion plans to return astronauts to the moon.

Bao Weimin, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a CPPCC national committee member, said: "A moon landing program is very necessary, because it could drive the country's scientific and technological development."

Besides the heavy-thrust carrier rocket under study, the academy is also developing a new family of carrier rockets for future space programs.

"The Long March-6 will be a small-thrust carrier rocket, and the Long March-7 will be a medium-thrust launch vehicle. Together with the Long March-5, they will form a family that can cover all necessities for launch vehicles and replace the current carrier rockets," Liang said.

So far, the Long March-5 project has entered the testability analysis stage, he added.

About 100,000 square meters of workshops have been completed so far at a new base being built in the Binhai New Area of the northern coastal city of Tianjin. The facility will be used for testing and manufacturing the Long March-5. Construction began last year with an investment of 1.5 billion yuan ($220 million), Liang said.

Eventually, a total investment of 10 billion yuan will be poured into the base, which will be able to produce a maximum of 12 Long March-5 launch vehicles each year, he said.

Qi Faren, former chief designer of Shenzhou spaceships and a CPPCC national committee member, said on Thursday that the Long March-5 will be used to launch China's space station mission.

"We aim to send the core module of the space station into orbit before 2020. Without the large-thrust launcher, the 20-ton core module cannot be in place," he said.

Before that, however, the first task of the Long March 5 may be to send the Fengyun-4 weather satellite into space from the launch center under construction at Wenchang in Hainan, China's southern island province, according to Liang.

The new Fengyun-4 satellite, which is under design, weighs about eight to nine tons, which cannot be lifted by the current launchers that can carry a maximum payload of 5.2 tons to geo-stationary orbit, he added.

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