This is the third aerospace show held in the city, which borders north of the Macau Special Administrative Region, in the Guangdong Province. The show, which attracts exhibitors from 27 nations and regional areas, is becoming a major aerospace show in Asia.

Last Sunday (Nov. 5) Xinhua News Agency reported that at the pre-show press conference, Vice President Hu Hongfu of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) reiterated China's goal of sending its yuhangyuans into orbit in the early 21st century.

Hu said that the successful maiden flight of the Shenzhou ("Divine Vessel") spacecraft a year ago on Nov. 20 signified a major breakthrough in Chinese manned spaceflight technology.

"The main objective of the launch was to test the rocket, and the accuracy of the overall spacecraft design and the reliability of its technical capability. The launch was a technical test. Future test flights will include new content."

However, Hu did not provide a concrete timeline of when the first manned mission might occur.

"The manned spaceflight project involves many aspects and is technically difficult and very challenging in coordination. Manned space missions must guarantee yuhangyuans an extremely high reliability. ... Therefore China must conduct several more unmanned test flights before realizing the historic breakthrough in manned spaceflight technology," said Hu.

The rumoured second unmanned mission of Shenzhou, dubbed Shenzhou-2, near the time of the National Day celebration on October 1 had passed without a launch.

At the news conference a day later (Nov. 6) Luan Enjie, Director of the Chinese space agency China National Space Administration (CNSA), said that several yuhangyuans had been in training for the first manned space mission.

The Beijing Youth Daily reported that these yuhangyuans were selected from the Chinese Air Force.

Luan said, "The first group of yuhangyuans are undergoing rigorous training in the area of [space] environment. Due to the characteristics of Chinese physique, after thorough training the first generation yuhangyuans may be better than American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts."

Sharing the view of Hu Hongfu, Luan also said that China would launch its first manned mission after flying several additional unmanned test missions of the Shenzhou vehicle.

But the surprising piece of information in the Beijing Youth Daily report is that the Shenzhou spacecraft is designed to accommodate four yuhangyuans. This is one extra spaceman that the capsule can carry than the Soyuz spacecraft, which is reportedly the blueprint of the Shenzhou design.

Hu also said that China would actively pursue expanding its launch service in Asia and Europe. He pointed out the launch contract that China Great Wall Industry Corporation signed with Italy last year as the first step in the process.

"The foreign launch service China offers is beneficial and supplemental to the international commercial satellite market," Hu said.

Since the government announced in 1985 its entry in the international commercial satellite launch market with the Changzheng series of rockets, China has successfully launched 27 foreign commercial and experimental satellites.

Luan, who is also the Deputy Director of the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence, pledged that the government would continue to provide full support to the aerospace industry in its expansion.

According to Luan, the government policy on aerospace in the 21st century includes:

• support research and build up of a technology infrastructure which will focus on innovation and achieving breakthroughs in key technologies to establish intellectual property claims;

• encourage and support aerospace enterprises to pursue the goal of commercial success, establish a foreign market operation system, and to promote space technology and its applications in manufacturing;

• encourage the aerospace industry to focus on market demand and reform the mode of manufacturing, and improve product support and training facilities in order to raise the credit of aerospace products and expand the market share.

• accelerate the establishment of aerospace teams, recruit talents to form a high quality and young space technical team, popularize aerospace knowledge and promote aerospace business so as to mobilize the society to support aerospace development;

• employ the approach of "assigning priorities", "active support", "adequate development" and "pursuing research" to coordinate various space activities, promote Project 211 which will create common satellite platforms and a new generation of launchers with two models, and complete an integrated satellite application system;

• realize space science and deep space exploration, and manned spaceflight projects.

"China also encourages and supports research cooperation and exchange among domestic and foreign scientific institutions, particularly in areas of microgravity fluid physics, space material sciences, space life sciences, and space biology technologies."

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