China's space program will receive a major boost as the nation's leading space agency intends to develop a family of robots that will be tasked to handle its unmanned and manned space exploration efforts.

According to Tian Yulong, secretary-general of the China National Space Administration, the Central government is formulating a long-term plan for the development of robots that will be sent to space to carry out specialized tasks, China Daily reported.

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"They will consist of Mars rovers, asteroid explorers, robotic arms and service robots that can help maintain and repair an in-orbit space station, space laboratories and satellites," Tian said at the sidelines of the 13th International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Automation in Space, held in Beijing.

The space administration and Harbin Institute of Technology are hosting the three-day event, which is attended by representatives from more than 10 countries, including the United States, Germany and Japan.

"More efforts will be made to develop advanced robots with higher automation to meet the needs of our deep-space exploration programs," Tian said, as he emphasized China's efforts  to continuously upgrade its space program.

He revealed that China's version of the Mars rover will be home-made, as it will be based on tested, domestically developed technologies and utilize the experience obtained from the country's Yutu lunar rover.

Based on the space agency's timetable, the goal is to send an unmanned probe to orbit and successfully land on Mars by 2020.

Since the 1960s, China's space program has launched more than 40 space probes to Mars.

Currently, there are only two rovers that have been beaming signals directly from the Red planet's surface back to Earth.

There are NASA's Mars Exploration Mission rover Opportunity and its Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity.

Professor Liu Hong, a senior robotics expert at Harbin Institute of Technology, noted that space missions involve a very high amount of risk especially for astronauts, as they operate in a vacuum and under extreme temperature changes and high radiation.

"Such operations are suitable for robots to carry out," Liu explained. "Robotic arms are an ideal combination of human intelligence and robotic capability, and these will be one of our research focuses."

With China now recognized as a world leader in robotic arms research, it will not take long for its space program to achieve its goal of finally landing the nation's first space probe on Mars.

Tagschina, China space program, NASA, mars exploration