China on Sunday launched a satellite that will carry out land surveys and mapping for several days before returning to earth, the Xinhua news agency said. The satellite was orbiting normally after being launched atop a Long March 2C rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the northern province of Gansu, Xinhua said. "The satellite is mainly for space scientific research, land surveying, mapping and other scientific experiments," Xinhua quoted unidentified officials as saying. A control center in the city Xi'an would monitor the satellite and recover its re-entry module, it said, but gave no further details. China regularly sends up research satellites and last October became the third nation to successfully send a man in space when a single astronaut orbited the Earth 14 times. Last month, China launched a probe as part of a programme with Europe aimed at improving monitoring of magnetic storms and other space hazards.
