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BEIJING - China launched an experimental module to lay the groundwork for a future space station on Thursday, underlining his ambition to become a major space power during the next decade.

The size of the box car Falun Tian module was shot into space from Jiuquan Launch Center on the edge of the Gobi Desert on a rocket Long March 2FT1.

It moves in an orbit 217 miles (350 km) above the ground, and to investigate the Chinese farmland by using special cameras, with essays by crystal growth in weightlessness.

China plans to launch an unmanned drone satellites Shenzhou 8 after practicing docking maneuvers remotely controlled with the module, possibly in the coming weeks. Two missions, at least one of them inhabited, are running with it next year for more practice with the astronauts stay a month.

Form 8.5 tonnes, whose name translates as "The Heavenly Palace 1" is to stay afloat for two years, after which the other two experimental modules have been launched in more testing before the unit was real launched in three parts between 2020 and 2022.

"This is an important test. We have never done that before," Jinrong Lu, chief engineer of the launch center, was quoted by official news agency Xinhua.

Space Station, which has not yet officially named, is the most ambitious space project in China, seeking to land on the moon, astronauts could.

Technically, Tiangong-1 launch sites in China, the United States was in 1960 during the Gemini program. Even if you are planning to launch a less comprehensive than the United States, China, the program also proceeds in the United States made every start, it binds, said Joan Johnson-Freese, an expert on how the U.S. Naval War College in Rhode Island.

"China has the advantage of more than 40 years later, not having to start at the bottom of the learning curve in its manned spaceflight program," said Johnson-Freese.

China's authoritarian, centralized political system also offers the advantage of the freedom of political wrangling over the financing and clearly long-term goals of the program in Soviet-style five-year plans.

China launched its first manned flight in 2003, with Russia and the United States the only country to launch humans into orbit, and to produce enormous amounts of national pride in the communist government.

However, normal, and the secret space program is closely linked to arms that was blocked by co-operation with the space programs of other nations' - such as the International Space Station.

In about 60 tons when completed, will be Chinese station considerably smaller than the ISS from 16 countries, which should continue to operate until 2028.

China has repeatedly asked to join the ISS, but was rejected largely on the objections of the United States, encouraging them to adopt a go-it-yourself approach.

Although the program went off without a problem as was the launch of a module of Falun Tian delayed by a year for technical reasons, and then again after a long Long March 2C rocket in March 2F resembles failed to reach orbit in August. The episode with the rocket have been examined, and problems are ironed out.

Although experts do not see any specific military action in China Space Station, space for other military programs, including the destruction of the dead Chinese satellite rocket in 2007, have caused alarm abroad.

"This is a country made its own, saying," Well, we can do what you have done for our country, apart from cooperation, the Chinese conditions, "said Charles Vick, an expert on the Chinese space program Globalsecurity.org, that tracks military and security news.

There are many challenges ahead of us, also try to dock at a distance - American astronauts aboard the treated room from their spaceship. Long March 5 rocket, which is ready to launch 20-tonne space station modules for real also remains untested.

Yet Beijing is expected to continue despite the difficulties, as it continues to lead the international prestige, credibility, domestic, technological and economic benefits, said Johnson-Freese and Vick.

"Basically, they will get what they want, no matter how long or what it takes for the authoritarian state to perform the tasks assigned," said Vick.