"Speaking about exploring planets, a field that is of great interest to everyone, a research mission on gathering and delivering samples from a circumterrestrial asteroid as well as the overflight of main-belt comets will be carried out approximately by 2025", Xu said.
A mission on gathering and delivering samples from Mars will be conducted approximately by 2030, the spokesman added.
According to him, China seeks to continue implementation of large scientific projects for developing its space sector. The country also plans missions on Jupiter exploration by 2030.
On Friday, China released the first batch of images of Mars taken by the Tianwen-1 spacecraft's Zhurong rover