BEIJING: China is expected to launch its first satellite for breeding plant seeds in September. The satellite will be launched from the Jiuquan satellite launch center, according to officials of the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense. It will make a 15-day space flight.
The satellite, named Shijian-8, would carry over 2,000 varieties of plant seeds in nine categories and 180 groups, including seeds of grains, cash crops and plants, as well as seeds of fungi and molecular biomaterials that have been sequenced.
China had conducted breeding tests in nine recoverable satellites and a number of new species of plants have been grown in space by Chinese scientists. Sun Laiyan, chief of the China National Space Administration, said the "seed satellite" will enable scientists to develop high-yield and high-quality plant varieties.
According to scientists, when seeds are exposed to special environment and subjected to phenomena like cosmic radiation and micro-gravity, they are likely to mutate and offer higher yields and better quality.
Shijian-8 project is managed by the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense. The Chinese ministry of agriculture handles the development of plant seeds, while the China Aerospace Science Group Company is responsible for designing and building the satellite and studying the space environment for breeding.
China has already established space seed breeding centres in regions such as Beijing, Shanghai and Heilongjiang province. A government official said between 2001 and 2004, space-bred rice and wheat varieties had been planted in about 566,600 hectares of land, producing an additional 340,000 tons of grain.
Experiments show that vitamin content of vegetables grown from space seeds is 281.5 per cent more than in ordinary vegetables and microelements of ferrum, zinc and carotene are also higher than normal.
China is the third country in the world capable of recovering satellites. It has so far launched 22 recoverable satellites with just one failure.
In addition to the space-breeding satellite, the country is also putting into orbit a meteorological satellite, an oceanic satellite and SinoSat 2, which is a direct broadcasting satellite capable of beaming TV programmes to even the most remote rural regions in the country.
