Prestigious China University of Science and Technology (CUST) in east China's Anhui Province is vying with a dozen other Chinese colleges, universities and scientific research institutions for a right to build a moon rover.

An official with CUST, based in Hefei, capital city of east China's Anhui Province, is upbeat about his university's chances of winning the competition.

"CUST is taking the leading position in China in terms of robot development and has won prizes in numerous contests," said the official.

He want on to say that the Chinese government has set forth technical parameters for the moon rover and the research missions that need to be accomplished.

"In strict compliance with CUST's design of a rover, a batch of robots will be made to carry out exploration missions on the moon independently, so that even if something goes wrong with one of the robots, the rest of them will go on working uninfluenced," said the official.

China, which succeeded in sending a manned spaceship into the orbit in October 2003, is scheduled to launch its second, Shenzhou VI, in 2005, with two Chinese astronauts.

The Chinese government has also announced its plan to launch a satellite to orbit the moon by 2007 as part of China's three-stage lunar project. Moreover, the country plans to land an unmanned rover on the Moon for collecting Lunar soil samples around the year 2020.