China will launch its first manned spaceflight at an appropriate time between Oct. 15 and 17, an official in charge of the country's manned spaceflight program announced Friday in Beijing.

"The Shenzhou (Divine Vessel) V spacecraft will carry out the first manned space mission and will lift off from the China Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center," said the official. "Now all preparatory work for the launch is progressing smoothly."

The spacecraft will orbit the Earth 14 times before landing in pre-selected areas, the official noted.

The launch would make China the third country to put a human being into space. The former Soviet Union put Yuri Gagarin into space in 1961; the United States sent Alan B. Shepard Jr. up less than a month later.

As planned, the spacecraft will first fly on an elliptic orbit with the orbital inclination angle of 42.4 degrees. The orbital perigee altitude is 200 km, and the apogee is 350 km. It will then shift to a circular orbit with an altitude of 343 km.

Following strict tests, training and selection, a team of "taikonauts", or astronauts named after the Chinese word for "space ", has been formed for the mission, said the official, adding that they have passed "a comprehensive drill". The identity of the space travelers are now not available.

The space flight would take place just after the closing of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee's 3rd plenum in Beijing, a major political meeting. The schedule - coupled with the National Day holiday last week - illustrates China's long-held desire to hold up its space program as a patriotic endeavor, the Associated Press said.

The launch of the 8-ton craft will be televised nationally on China Central Television Channel 4 and 9, the report said. If the launch is completed successfully, China would join the United States and the former Soviet Union, the only countries that have sent manned craft into space.

The Beijing Star Daily said 14 would-be astronauts had arrived at the Jiuquan Space Centre, in Northwest China's Gansu Province, and three would be chosen as the finalists to soar into orbit. The Beijing Star Daily said the Shenzhou V has "entered the final stage of general tests."

Four unmanned Shenzhou capsules have been launched so far, orbiting the Earth for up to a week and landing by parachute in the northern grasslands of China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

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