Three aerospace centers in Beijing, northwest China's Jiuquan and north China's Xi'an jointly watch over China's second manned space flight, said an expert Thursday.

Sun Baosheng, deputy chief designer of the monitoring and telecommunications system of the manned space project, said the Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Center, Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center and Xi'an Satellite Track and Control Center jointly realize real time monitoring over Shenzhou VI.

The Jiuquan Center is mainly responsible for data collecting, processing and analyzing, decision-making and commanding during the space capsule's ascend, while the Beijing Center watches over most of the processes from the capsule's entering into orbit till return.

A bit like a backup of the Beijing Center, the Xi'an Center calculates some key monitoring data of the craft and compare them to Beijing Center's calculation to ensure accuracy.

It also performs remote supervision over monitoring stations to ensure they track and control the craft effectively, Sun said.

(Xinhua News Agency October 13, 2005)