Beijing, Nov 20: Buoyed by the success of the first manned space mission, china has embarked on an ambitious satellite launching spree. After launching four successful space launches in a month, Chinese space officials today said the country will launch a satellite later this year in cooperation with the European space agency.

The China National Space Administration said that the satellite, or `probe no.1` will be sent into space by a Chinese-made carrier rocket, `long march 2c/sm.`

With its orbit ranging from 550 km to 66,970 km, probe no.1 and another satellite scheduled to be launched in the first half of next year, will form an independent Earth space probe system, the administration said in an announcement on the "double star project", which was initiated by Chinese scientists in 1997.
The two satellites will probe important areas of two magnetic fields of Earth space, comprising the Earth`s magnetic field, ionosphere and middle to high layers of atmosphere.

The system will be capable of probing in three dimensions the incidence and development of space storms in a bid to find ways to improve safety for space activities.

Probe no.1 will be the highest flying satellite China has ever launched, and it will carry instruments provided by European Space Agency (ESA) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
The four European satellites have been launched by ESA under its magnetic field exploration programme cluster II.

Bureau Report