Launch of China's first manned spacecraft on Oct. 15 is expected to be followed in about six months by another manned mission, this one with a crew of at least two, one analyst said.

Charles P. Vick of GlobalSecurity.org said China's manned space program has been funded at $2.2-2.3 billion since about 1993, and that the money will pay for the first docking of two manned Shenzou spacecraft, probably in late 2005.

Shenzou 5, with 38-year-old Lt. Col. Yang Liwei aboard, was launched from the Jiu Quan site in the Gobi Desert by a Long March 2F booster at about 9 a.m. local time into an orbit with an inclination of 42.4 degrees. Apogee was 350 kilometers, perigee 200 kilometers, and period about 100 minutes. A 21-hour mission of 14 orbits was expected.

Four unmanned versions of the Shenzou were launched to pave the way for Yang's flight. The vehicle is based on the Russian Soyuz, but is "quite an advance" over that vehicle, Vick said. It gives China an "earth orbital capability for a space station," to which China apparently is committed to developing, he said.

And, he said, when China links the Shenzou to the Long March 5 booster - a Titan 3-4 class rocket - in about 2010, a space station program would be a real possibility. Long March 5 also would give China a "lunar circumnavigation capability, and lunar orbit capability through Earth orbital rendezvous packaging," Vick said. "If they do another kind of packaging, you've got manned lunar landing support capability."

A recent white paper entitled "China's Space Activities," presented in Beijing, said one goal to be achieved within the next 20 years is to "establish China's own manned spaceflight system and carry out manned spaceflight scientific research and technological experiments on a certain scale."

Meanwhile, China is committed to an unmanned effort to explore the Moon, beginning in about three to five years and using an existing spacecraft.

China launched its first satellite in 1970, and progressed slowly on several fronts, including the operation of recoverable military reconnaissance satellites, which put it in the same class as the U.S. and the former Soviet Union and moved it toward human spaceflight. Human-related missions began in about 1999 with launch of the initial Shenzou.

China's science and technology programs, including the manned effort, apparently got a boost after the first Gulf War when the U.S. showed prowess in such areas as stealth, precision weapons and information warfare.

The U.S. performance there "clearly showed that [China] could be beaten with smaller numbers of forces in a very sophisticated way," Vick has written in an unpublished work. "That shook the Chinese military establishment" and spurred efforts on several fronts, he wrote.