China will launch its first satellite for breeding plant seeds
in September at the Jiuquan
Satellite Launch Center, said official sources on Saturday.
The satellite will make a 15-day space flight, said officials
with the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for
National Defense.
A conference was held Saturday to mark the accomplishment of the
building of the breeding satellite, Shijian-8.
The satellite is expected to carry over 2,000 shares of plant
seeds in nine categories and 180 groups, including seeds of grains,
cash crops, and forage plants, as well as seeds of fungi and
molecular biomaterials that have been sequenced.
The commission presides over the whole Shijian-8 project, while
the Ministry of Agriculture is in charge of the breeding of plant
seeds and the China Aerospace Science Group Company is responsible
for designing and building the satellite, and studying the space
environment for breeding.
China is now the third nation in the world capable of recovering
satellites. So far, the country has launched 22 recoverable
satellites with only one failure.
Since 1987, China has conducted breeding tests on nine return
satellites and a number of new species of plant seeds have been
bred in space by Chinese scientists.
(Xinhua News Agency July 23, 2006)