Don't bother flicking through the TV channels looking for live broadcasting of China's first manned space mission, the government had scrapped plans to broadcast the launch live.

　　"China's national television station, CCTV, announced on Tuesday that it will not conduct the live broadcast of the event, as previously planned," the People's Daily said on its Website yesterday. It gave no reason for the decision.

　　It said the decision has "drawn fierce debate and criticism" in China's Internet chat rooms.

　　The cctv would not confirm the Website report.

　　"There might be a live broadcast, or there might not," a CCTV spokes-woman, who refused to give her name, said.

　　The people's Daily also said the craft, Shenzhou V, had completed its final launch test on Monday morning and was "sitting on the launch pad with more fuel being injected" yesterday. It said top Chinese leaders, including President Hu Jintao, were expected to attend the launch.

　　Meanwhile, Xinhua news agency reports that China's own space suits are "as safe, as reliable" as Russian or American models, according to Su Shuangning, chief designer of the astronaut support system.

　　Su said that intravehicular suits for Chinese astronauts are made of materials deve-loped by China inde-pendently.

　　"In design, ours do not differ much from space suits made in Russia or the United States, but we have made a range of modifications in light of Chinese astronauts' physical and other con-ditions," said Su.

　　There are two types of space suits, intravehicular and extravehicular. The Chinese astronaut (or astronauts) will not step outside the capsule during the first space journey, and so only the intravehicular space suit will be used.

　　"The intravehicular space suit is also called the intra-vehicular pressurized suit," Su explained. "It is used to protect astronauts when accidents happen, say a leakage that causes the air pressure inside the spacecraft to plummet."Should that happen, he continued, the astronaut can put on the suit and connect it to the oxygen and air supply systems aboard, making oxygen supply available and bringing inner-suit air pressure back to normal.

　　An astronaut usually need not wear the suit when the spaceship is orbiting. Su said the astronaut will put on the suit only when there are problems within the spaceship.