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China boldly began work yesterday on a space launch center in Wenchang city in the northeast corner of the tropical island province of Hainan, laying more groundwork for the nation's more sophisticated space program.
The Hainan Space Launch Center, the fourth and most southerly in China, will be finished by 2013.
It will be capable of launching 10 to 12 vehicles a year.
The center will handle new-generation rocket-carriers and space vehicles, including geo-synchronous satellites, polar-orbiting satellites, space stations and deep-space exploration satellites, said Wang Weichang, director of the Hainan space center project headquarters.
Wang was speaking during the cornerstone-laying ceremony at the center.
Future manned flights into space will be mainly launched from Hainan, with some blasting off from Gansu province.
The Xichang launch center, in Sichuan province, will be the back-up for the Hainan center, said Zhang Ping, deputy director of the Hainan headquarters.
Experts say the Hainan site will be more convenient than the other three sites and be able to handle more payload. It will also cost less to launch vehicles from Hainan.
The current three space launch centers - in Jiuquan, Gansu (the country's first, built in 1958), Sichuan and Shanxi provinces - are inland and railways are used to transport rocket-carriers to the launch sites.
Because of the limitations imposed by railway tunnels, China's current launch vehicles tend to be "tall and slim", said Pang Zhihao, a researcher and the deputy editor-in-chief of the monthly Space International.
The new launch center is accessible from the sea and will be able to accept much larger launchers with more power and bigger payloads.
Questions:
1. On which part of Hainan island is the new space center to be based?
2. How many space launch centers will China now have?
3. In which year is it expected that the center will be ready?
Answers:
1. The upper northeast corner.
2. Four.
3. 2013.
（英語(yǔ)點(diǎn)津 Helen 編輯）
Brendan joined The China Daily in 2007 as a language polisher in the Language Tips Department, where he writes a regular column for Chinese English Language learners, reads audio news for listeners and anchors the weekly video news in addition to assisting with on location stories. Elsewhere he writes Op'Ed pieces with a China focus that feature in the Daily's Website opinion section.
He received his B.A. and Post Grad Dip from Curtin University in 1997 and his Masters in Community Development and Management from Charles Darwin University in 2003. He has taught in Japan, England, Australia and most recently China. His articles have featured in the Bangkok Post, The Taipei Times, The Asia News Network and in-flight magazines.
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