China's first satellite Shijian-8 specially designed for seed breeding in space blasted off successfully at 3:00 pm September 9 at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in Northwest China's Gansu Province.

  Chinanews, Jiuquan, Sept. 9 – China's first satellite Shijian-8 specially designed for seed breeding in space blasted off successfully at 3:00 pm September 9 at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in Northwest China's Gansu Province.

 

The satellite carries more than 2,000 varieties of plant seeds in nine categories, including grains, cash crops and forage plants, as well as seeds of fungi and molecular biomaterials.

 

The "seed satellite" will enable scientists to try and cultivate high-yield and high-quality plant varieties.

 

Since 1987, nine Chinese satellites and several of China's six Shenzhou spacecraft have carried seeds for experiments and a number of new species of plant seeds have been bred in space, but never before has the country launched a satellite exclusively for seed breeding.