Sichuan province: October 24, 2007 - China is reported to have launched its first lunar probe today, blasting off on schedule from the Xichang space centre in southern Sichuan province into cloudy skies.Thousands of local residents were moved from the launch site before the probe took off on the back of a Long March rocket.

This is a great display of it higher technological competence.  Experts feel that it is a direct challenge to the United States in terms of its display of the technological prowess and ambition to stand by United States.

The state-run CCTV station broadcast images of the Change (pronounced Chang-er) 1 blasting off on schedule from the Xichang space centre in southern Sichuan province into cloudy skies.

The launch was preceded by a volley of propaganda about national unity and the growing power of China. The vessel will broadcast patriotic songs into space as it makes it way towards a moon orbit on November 5.

Named after a legendary goddess who flew to the moon, Change is on a one-year mission to create three-dimensional maps of the surface and analyse lunar dust using stereo cameras and X-ray spectrometers. The first images will be transmitted back to earth in the second half of November.

The orbiter is the first phase of a 1.4 billion yuan (£95m) lunar programme that aims to land an unmanned rover on the surface by 2012 and put a man on the moon before 2020.

It is part of a new space race among Asian powers that is making space more crowded with manmade objects than ever before.
Japan launched its first moon probe last month. India plans a similar lunar mission next spring.

The US remains dominant. Its prowess was demonstrated this week with the take-off of the space shuttle Discovery.
But China has made up a lot of ground. Since its first manned space flight in 2003, it has repeated the feat and announced plans for a space laboratory, a spacewalk and even the formation of a Communist party cell in space.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,2198178,00.html

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