The circumlunar satellite Chang'e-1 blasts off on a Long March 3A carrier rocket at 6:05pm yesterday from the No. 3 tower at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwestern Sichuan Province. Chinese scientists have hailed the initial stage as a success. Inset: The orbiter. - Xinhua 

Shanghai Daily news

A country transfixed by television images yesterday held its collective breath as the final countdown from ground control sounded "... three, two, one ... ignite!"

The rocket blasted off without a hitch; those bated breaths turned to resounding cheers.

And so began China's ambitious 10-year space-exploration plan as its first lunar probe speared into cloudy skies with a mighty roar.

The Long March 3A rocket carrying the probe left at 6:05pm from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the southwestern province of Sichuan.

Thirty-seven minutes later, the Chang'e 1 satellite - named after a legendary Chinese goddess who flew to the moon - separated from the carrier rocket on a trajectory to reach lunar orbit in 13 days.

The center declared the launch a success at 7:10pm.

Vice Premier Zeng Peiyan arrived at the site and sent congratulations from President Hu Jintao for the spectacular launch, the first step of China's three-stage lunar mission that is targeted to end with a moon landing.

"The launch was very successful, and everything is proceeding just as planned," said Wu Ji, director of the Space Science and Applied Research Center under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The rocket and satellite had a combined weight of more than 250 tons.

The million-kilometer-long first phase of the satellite's journey is expected to take 13 days and 18 hours.

At 6:07pm, the 52.52-meter tall rocket disconnected its first booster, which landed in the mountain areas of neighboring Guizhou Province.

Two minutes later, the two-billion-yuan (US$266.31 million) rocket cast its payload fairings, a device that covers the satellite and protects it from shudders and heat during the powerful lift-off.

The payload fairings should be found somewhere along the boundaries between Guangdong and Jiangxi provinces.

At 6:10pm, the rocket, which has completed 14 successful launches in a row, detached its second stage, which is expected to fall into the open sea southeast of Taiwan.

The satellite disconnected from its carrier at 6:30pm.

The machine is expected to experience a total of 10 orbit transfers during the journey, making it the most complicated satellite China has produced. The journey includes a five-day orbit of Earth before a 116-hour flight to transfer to a lunar orbit, which is scheduled to begin some time next Wednesday.

The satellite is expected to relay the first picture of the moon in late November and will also carry out a series of projects that includes acquiring three-dimensional images and analyzing the distribution of elements on the moon's surface during a year-long lunar exploration, the China National Space Administration said.

The landmark satellite launch marks the first step of China's three-stage moon mission, which will lead to a moon landing and launch of a moon rover around 2012. In the third phase, another rover will land on the moon and return to Earth with lunar soil and stone samples for scientific research in about 2017.

China carried out its maiden manned space flight in October 2003, making it only the third country in the world after the former Soviet Union and the United States to have sent men into space.