China makes rapid progress, breakthroughs in space industry: white paper

BEIJING, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- A white paper published on Thursday said that China has made innovative achievements and breakthroughs in major space projects, and space technology has been upgraded remarkably.

The white paper, China's Space Activities in 2011, published by the State Council's Information Office, said that the country's Long March rockets have accomplished 67 successful launches, sending 79 spacecraft into planned orbits since 2006.

The Long March rocket series have been improved, and major progress has been made in the development of new-generation launch vehicles, the white paper said.

So far, China has developed Fengyun (wind and cloud), Haiyang (ocean), Ziyuan (resources), Yaogan (remote-sensing) and Tianhui (space mapping) satellite series, plus a constellation of small satellites for environmental and disaster monitoring and forecasting.

Fengyun satellites are now capable of global, three-dimensional and multispectral quantitative observation, and the first Haiyang dynamics environmental satellite launched in August, 2011 is capable of all-weather and full-time microwave observation, it said.

China has won successes in its high-capacity geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) satellite communications platform, space-based data relays, tracking, telemetry and command (TT&C), and other key technologies, showing remarkable improvement in the technical performance of China's satellites and in voice, data, radio and television communications.