China is going to launch 8 domestic satellites and 1 spacecraft into the universe this year, a year featuring the numerous in number and varieties of satellites to be sent into the space. Zhang Qingwei, General manager of China Aerospace Science & Technology Corporation recently revealed the news to the reporter.

The appraisal on the "Shenzhou IV" spacecraft passed recently by experts has proved that the reliability and safety has fully reached the standard for a manned flight, indicating that China's aerospace science and technology has entered into its mature stage. It has once again made another significant step forward for a manned flight into the space. The implementation of the project for a manned flight into the space will put China at the third place of the world in mastering this technology, thus exerting further the influence of China in the world. And this will help create a favorable condition for China to peacefully use the resources in the universe in future.

Last year, China Aerospace Science & Technology Corporation launched Fengyun No.1 D Satellite, Haiyang No.1 A and ZY No.2 resource satellites into the space and handed them one after another over to the users. Especially the successful launching and delivery for use of Haiyang No.1 A Satellite has filled up the vacancy in the field of oceanic satellite, thereby providing China with a hi-tech means in maritime monitoring and control and in the exploitation of marine resources. We've also seen a favorable progress in the research and manufacturing of Fengyun No.2 batch 02 satellites, public satellite platform for large-sized geo-static satellites and the initial-sample of Sino No.2 Satellite and a great headway has been scored too in the research of Fengyun No.3 meteorological satellite. For the moment, the 12 satellites in the orbits are in a smooth operation, working quite well. And we saw four successful launchings of the Changzheng series of carrier rockets bringing 3 satellites and 2 spacecraft into the sky, thus hitting a record high of 27 times of successful launching ever since October 1996.

Up to now, China has two Fengyun No.1 solar-synchronous satellites and two Fengyun No.2 geo-synchronous satellites running in the space, becoming the third country of the world having two types of meteorological satellites running at the same time in the orbits. The weather forecast and calamity monitoring data provided by these meteorological and resource-probing satellites have done an important role in the development of national economy and that for helping reducing the losses caused by natural calamity alone has come to over several billion yuan in people's currency.

In the seven major engineering systems for the manned spaceflight in China, China Aerospace Science & Technology Corporation has taken up the two major engineering projects in the research and manufacturing of spacecraft and carrier rocket. By using the No.2 Changzheng carrier rocket F, last year saw successful launching into the orbits the spacecraft "Shenzhou III" and "Shenzhou IV". Now the spacecraft are in normal operation in the sky while the returned modules have witnessed a safe return onto the earth with the testing flights coming to a consummate success.

(People's Daily January 27, 2003)