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The Zhuque-2 rocket lifts off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on Wednesday China said the rocket completed the flight mission. Wang Jiangbo/Xinhua via EPA-EFE July 12 (UPI) -- A methane-fueled rocket, launched by China, has reached orbit for the first time, beating out potential competitors from the United States and indicating a renewed effort by that nation to land astronauts on the moon with a more powerful spacecraft. Built by Landspace, a private Chinese company, the 164-foot Zhuque-2 rocket lifted off from its Jiuquan launch complex, in China's Inner Mongolia, on Wednesday morning local time, Chinese...

Archaeologists have unearthed relics that suggest prehistoric humans lived along the Silk Road long before it was created about 2,000 years ago as a pivotal Eurasian trade network. An excavation project that started in 2010 on ruins in northwest China's Gansu Province has yielded evidence that people who lived on the west bank of the Heihe River 4,100 to 3,600 years ago were able to grow crops and smelt copper, the researchers said. The site is believed to date back to the Han Dynasty (202 BC - AD 220). Over the past three years, archaeologists have discovered a variety of...

JIUQUAN, Oct. 31 -- A China manned space program spokeswoman said here Monday that the unmanned spacecraft Shenzhou-8 is scheduled to be launched at 5:58 a.m. Tuesday. A modified Long March-2F rocket, the fuel of which is being refilled, will carry the spacecraft from the launch pad at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/cslc/139838.htm

BEIJING (AFX) - China will launch its second manned space mission from a remote desert region on Wednesday, an official involved in the launch told Agence France-Presse. "It is Oct 12 at 9:00 am," said an official from the technical department of the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The official declined to be named. Shenzhou VI will carry two astronauts and orbit the earth for five days. The flight comes almost exactly two years after the successful Oct 15, 2003 launch of astronaut Yang Liwei into space, making China only the third nation after the US and the former Soviet...