A joint Chinese-Brazilian environmental monitoring satellite launched Monday from northern China failed to enter orbit, state media and experts said, in a rare setback for the country’s ambitious space programme.

The satellite, meant to be a key tool in Brazil’s efforts to control Amazon rainforest deforestation and to monitor its huge agribusiness sector, blasted off from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre in Shanxi province on a Long March 4B rocket at 11:26am (0326 GMT), Xinhua said.

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“The rocket malfunctioned during the flight and the satellite failed to enter orbit,” the state news agency quoted military sources as saying.

The satellite is known as CBERS-3 (China?Brazil Earth Resources Satellite 3), or Ziyuan I-03 in Chinese. Ziyuan is the Chinese word for “resource”.

In Brazil, the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) said in a statement that “there was a failure of the launcher during the flight and consequently the satellite was not positioned in the planned orbit”.

“Preliminary evaluations suggest that the CBERS-3 returned to Earth.”

The CBERS remote-sensing satellite programme grew out of a bilateral partnership agreement signed in 1988.

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The satellite is based on the Chinese Ziyuan 1 design but includes Brazilian-designed mission payload.

Three satellites of the series were launched in 1999, 2003 and 2007 aboard Chinese-made Long March rockets.

CBERS-3 was originally scheduled to be launched in 2009, but the launch date was repeatedly postponed.

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A CBERS-4 is scheduled to be launched in 2015.

China launched its first moon rover mission last week, the latest step in an ambitious space programme which is seen as a symbol of its rising global stature.

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The rover — known as Yutu, or Jade Rabbit — is due to land on the moon in mid-December.

China sees its space programme as a symbol of its growing international status and technological advancement, as well as of the Communist Party’s success in reversing the fortunes of the once impoverished nation.

It aims to establish a permanent space station by 2020 and eventually send a human to the moon.

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[Image via Agence France-Presse]