China is building a new space center in Shanghai to boost its manned spaceflight and satellite launching programs, an official newspaper said Monday.

The new about 200-acre base will consolidate and expand operations of the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology, the China Daily said.

The academy produced communications and fuel systems for China's first manned spacecraft, the Shenzhou 5, which in October 2003 carried astronaut Yang Liwei on a one-day Earth-orbit mission.

That mission made China the third country after the United States and Russia to put a man into space, lending new prestige and momentum to the decades-old military-linked space program.

The Shanghai academy also produces parts for China's latest-model Long March 2D rocket, along with the fuel module, power plant and communications system for China's next manned spacecraft, the Shenzhou 6. That flight, scheduled for this autumn, plans to send a pair of Chinese astronauts into space on a mission of up to seven days.

The academy hopes to increase efficiency by concentrating Shanghai's scattered space industry installations in the same area to provide research, manufacturing and logistics facilities. It will also take on cooperative projects with foreign partners through parent organization, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, the China Daily said.

Parts of the base will open in 2007 with completion set for 2010, the newspaper said. It said plans call also for a museum displaying parts of rockets, satellites and other space aviation technology developed by the academy.

Source: agencies