BEIJING, Oct 12: China tightened security on Sunday at its premier rocket launch site as the countdown continued for the country’s first manned venture into space, amid intense scrutiny from the local media.

With just days to go before China is set to try and join the world’s exclusive club of space explorers, officials slapped a ring of security around the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern Gansu province.

If successful, the mission will place China alongside Russia and the United States as the only countries to put a man in space, although China’s flight will follow the earliest manned space flights by more than four decades.

The center, located in one of China’s most inaccessible and arid regions, was to be sealed off Sunday and outsiders refused access ahead of the launch, expected between October 15 and 17, the Chengdu Evening Post reported.

Officials were in particular checking journalists’ identifications and would only admit reporting teams carrying letters of invitation from high-level officials, the paper said.

The government has announced that once the Shenzhou V manned space vehicle is launched this week, it will orbit the earth 14 times on a 21-hour mission. Landing is scheduled to take place in neighbouring Inner Mongolia.

Leading newspapers — from the staid People’s Daily to more lively tabloids — were carrying detailed reports and full-colour photos of preparations for the history-making event.

And despite the strict security at Jiuquan itself, visitors were crowding to the remote area, eager to perhaps catch a glimpse of the “Long March” II F carrier rocket, which had already been transported to the launch pad.

Hotels in the area reported no vacancies, forcing some hotels to use meeting rooms as makeshift dormitories and encouraging most of them to charge twice the normal rates, according to the Chengdu Evening Post.

Media hoping to cater to a news-hungry public have published a vast amount of copy about the secretive Jiuquan area, which has been the scene of space experiments since 1958.—AFP