Guo Baozhu, deputy director of China National Space Administration
(CNSA), told that China is going to develop new-generation rocket
satellites for civil spaceflight during the 10th Five-year Plan
period (2001-5) at an international seminar on Wednesday.
As reported by
Liberation Daily, it is the first time for CNSA to disclose
its detailed program for civil spaceflight development during
the 10th Five-year Plan period after China published its "White
Paper on China's Space Activities" at the end of last
year. The gross investment of the program will largely surpass
investments in civil spaceflight during the 9th Five-year
Plan period. The key items for the development of civil spaceflight
during the 10th Five-year Plan period include:
--To develop large-capacity
broadcasting and telecommunications satellites. Social informationization
progress brings a demand growth for telecom satellite transmitters.
Commercial consumers focus on large-capacity, high reliability
and long-service-life broadcasting and telecommunication satellites.
China will intensify the momentum of investment in such causes
and expedite the development of large capacity broadcasting
and telecommunication satellites so as to initially set up
China's satellite telecom industry.
--To carry out
research on new-generation launch vehicles, upgrade the overall
level and capacity of launch vehicles and improve the performance
and reliability of the "Long-March" group. China
will develop new-generation launch vehicles non-toxic, non-polluting,
high-performance and low-cost qualities so as to form a new
group of launch vehicles and work for raised capability of
providing international commercial launching services.
--To set up oceanic
satellite system. China will carry out oceanic monitoring
with a satellite remote-sensing application system which is
very important and urgent for protecting China's oceanic rights
and interests, exploiting oceanic resources and mitigating
oceanic disasters. It plans to launch its first oceanic satellite
HY-1 in 2001 to fill in a national gap in oceanic satellites.
--To secure double-satellite
space exploration program. To explore the earth's magnetic
layers, China will implement a double-satellite space exploration
program, i.e., to situate the orbit of one satellite in the
direction of the magnetic pole of the earth, another near
the equatorial plane, then harmonize the two satellites to
conduct large-scale space exploration.
-- To set up resource
satellite system. China will continue developing new-generation
satellites following No. 1 Resource satellite and Resource
series so as to give full play of their unique functions.
Among the numerous programs which may exert tremendous influence
on national economy are included "1999-2010 Land and
Resources Inspection", "China Desertification Monitoring",
"Monitoring on crop growth and estimation of crop output",
disaster monitoring and evaluation, environmental pollution
monitoring, project site selection and stability evaluation,
urban planning, surveying and drafting, etc.
--To gradually
build up an earth environmental observation system composed
of a small group of satellites. China plans to launch a group
of satellites for environmental observation. It will conduct
24-hour, all-weather and constant monitoring on disaster and
environment of the earth with a complete satellite remote-sensing
application system.
(People's Daily
04/23/2001)
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