China is planning to build a new satellite launch site -- the country's fourth -- to boost its burgeoning space program, state media reported yesterday.
The facility will be located in Wenchang on the southern island province of Hainan, about 60km away from the provincial capital of Haikou, the official Xinhua news agency said.
The site is closer to the equator than other parts of China, which makes it well suited for launches because lower latitudes have stronger centrifugal forces, reducing the amount of energy required to launch rockets, Xinhua said.
The plan has been approved by the State Council, China's Cabinet, and the Central Military Commission, it said, without giving any details on construction or a completion date.
Telephones at the State Council and Wenchang government offices rang unanswered yesterday.
China takes great pride in its space program and sees it as a way to validate its claims to be one of the world's leading nations in the field of science.
In 2003, China launched its first manned space mission, making it the third country to send a human into orbit on its own, after Russia and the US.
China began building its first rocket launch site in Jiuquan in the Gobi Desert in 1958. The other two facilities are in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, and in Xichang, Sichuan Province.
According to the People's Daily newspaper, the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, Jiuquan will continue to launch re-entry satellites and manned spacecraft after the Hainan site is completed.
Taiyuan will be responsible for satellites that orbit the sun, while the Xichang operations will be used for urgent or emergency missions, the paper said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in