China also planned to launch the Shenzhou 11 spacecraft, which would carry two astronauts on board, in the fourth quarter of this year to dock with Tiangong 2, Xinhua said.

After its first test flight in the Wenchang satellite launch centre in Hainan province, a next-generation Long March 7 rocket will put Tianzhou 1 into space.

Beijing would use the mission to carry out experiments to help test key technologies, including cargo transportation, the resupply of propellant for orbiting, and the medium-term stay of astronauts, as well as conducting “relatively large-scale” space science and application experiments, a space programme spokesman was quoted as saying.

The astronauts aboard Shenzhou 11 are to receive specialist training.

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The Tiangong 2, Shenzhou 11, two Long March 2F carrier rockets that will lift them into space, the Long March 7 rocket, and Tianzhou 1 were all now either being assembled or undergoing assembly examinations.

The spokesman said that China expected to complete an orbiting space station, consisting of a core module and two linked laboratories, by 2020.

The first space lab, Tiangong 1, launched in 2011, had been working well, Xinhua said.

China’s space programme still has to master launching cargo and fuel via space freighters and recycling air and water for extended manned missions, state media have said.

The Tiangong 1 had been in service for four and a half years and was in good working condition, which enabled it to remain in orbit for continuing operations, the spokesperson said.

China sent its first satellite into space in 1970 – the year after the US had put the first man on the moon. The mainland subsequently spent huge sums on research and training before sending its first man into space, Yang Liwei, in 2003.

Additional reporting by Staff Reporter