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China's bold plan to land a robotic spaceship on the moon and bring it back to Earth has moved another step forward.

The service module of China's unmanned test lunar orbiter successfully entered an eight-hour orbit around the moon, state media reported.

This brings it within 125 miles (200 km) of the lunar surface at its closest point, and out to a range of 3,293 miles (5,300 km) at its highest point.

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The service module of China's unmanned test lunar orbiter (artist's impression pictured) successfully entered an eight-hour orbit around the moon, state media reported

While the orbiter flew back to Earth in November, the service modules had been sitting in a position that brought in into sync with Earth's orbit, known as the second Lagrange point.

The craft, loaded with support systems for operating a spaceship, will collect further data to aid planning of the 2017 Chang'e 5 mission, state broadcaster China Central Television said.

Chang'e 5 is being designed to make a soft landing on the moon and collect at least 4lbs (2kg) of rock and soil samples before returning to Earth.

If successful, that would make China only the third country after the United States and Russia to meet such a challenge.

The craft, loaded with support systems for operating a spaceship, will collect further data to aid planning of the 2017 Chang'e 5 mission, state broadcaster China Central Television said. Chang'e 5 is being designed to make a soft landing on the moon and collect at least 4lbs (2kg) of rock and soil samples before returning to Earth

China is also looking to mine the moon for the rare helium isotope that some scientists claim could meet global energy demand far into the future, according to a report in The Times.

Professor Ouyang Ziyuan, the chief scientist of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, recently said, the moon is 'so rich' in helium 3, that this could 'solve humanity's energy demand for around 10,000 years at least.

Helium 3, scientists argue, could power clean fusion plants. It is nonradioactive and a very little goes a very long way.

For instance, two fully-loaded Space Shuttle cargo bay's worth - about 40 tonnes worth - could power the United States for a year at the current rate of energy consumption.

This would require mining an areas the size of Washington, D.C.

The isotope is so rare on the Earth because our atmosphere and magnetic field prevent any of the solar helium 3 from arriving on the surface.

The moon doesn't have this problem as there is nothing to prevent helium 3 being absorbed by the lunar soil.

China's lunar exploration program has already launched a pair of orbiting lunar probes, and in 2013 landed a craft on the moon with a rover onboard.

None of those were designed to return to Earth. China also has hinted at a possible crewed mission to the moon.

China sent its first astronaut into space in 2003, the only other country after Russia and the U.S. to achieve manned space travel independently. It also has launched a temporarily crewed space station.

China's program has received Russian assistance, but has largely developed independently of America's, which is now in its sixth decade of putting people into space.

China is looking to mine the moon for a rare helium isotope that some scientists claim could meet global energy demand far into the future (artist's impression pictured)

China send experimental spacecraft to circle the moon

If successful, the Chang'e 5 mission (artist's impression pictured) would make China only the third country after the United States and Russia to meet such a challenge of returning samples from the moon