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A Brazilian special envoy said in Beijing Tuesday that his government has full confidence in China's space technology and expects to expand cooperation with China in this field.
Bolo Delgad, the special envoy of the Brazilian president, made this remark at the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, north China's Shanxi Province, after watching the successful launch of the second earth resources satellite developed jointly by China and Brazil.
The Brazilian government expects to further cooperate with China in the field of remote sensing from space and would strive to upgrade the cooperation to new heights, he said.
Besides Delgad, Brazilian ambassador to China Ouro Preto, and Jorge Guimaraes, Brazil's vice-minister of science and technology, also watched the launch mission at the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center.
Guimaraes called the launch a rare opportunity for Brazilian-Chinese space technology cooperation, noting that the two sides would jointly produce two more satellites of higher technological levels.
He expressed the hope that besides space technology, Brazil and China would conduct more cooperation in even wider fields of science and technology in the future.
The second Sino-Brazilian earth resources satellite and another China-made small satellite were launched into different pre-set orbits atop a Long March IV B carrier rocket, which blast off at 11:16 a.m. (Beijing Time) Tuesday from the center.
The satellite was designed to monitor the earth's land resources changes, survey arable lands, and pastures or grasslands, monitor natural and human disasters, offer information on aquatic farming and environmental pollution, and explore mineral resources.
Weighing 1,550 kg and with a designed service lifespan of two years, it was developed by the China Academy of Space Technology in cooperation with Brazilian National Institute for Space Research.
The previous Sino-Brazilian earth resource satellite, launched on Oct. 14, 1999 from the same launch center, has outlived its planned two-year service term but remains operational in orbit.
(Xinhua News Agency October 22, 2003)
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