China is taking steps towards the space station with the launch of a new rocket

It has been almost 10 years in development and boasts the biggest fairing – a nose cone that contains loads – from any Chinese carrier rocket.

The single-core stage makes the structure simpler and will ensure greater reliability, compared to multi-stage rockets, according to Xinhua.

One of the main challenges for designers is to ensure the rocket can drop its payload directly into orbit, which requires extreme accuracy.

As a result, Long March-5B is equipped with guidance, navigation and control technology which means the trajectory can be adjusted continuously, chief designer Li Dong told Xinhua.

Designers will use what they learn from Long March-5B to develop heavy launch vehicles, he added.

Before the end of the year, Long March-5 is scheduled to launch China’s first Mars probe and the Chang’e-5 lunar probe to collect lunar samples and return to Earth, according to Xinhua.

China launched its first manned space flight in 2003 – more than 40 years after NASA.

But because this country has grown richer and stronger in the past few decades, its extraordinary program has accelerated.

Backed by billions of dollars in government investment, Beijing has fired space and satellite laboratories into orbit and even became the first country to send unmanned plows to the far side of the moon.

Now, China plans to launch a permanent space station in 2022, and there is even talk of becoming the second country to send someone to the surface of the moon, maybe in the 2030s.