China Launches First Lunar Probe
By JIM YARDLEY
nytimes.com
( Soon to be followed by India and Japan.. )
BEIJING, Oct. 24 — With a regional space race heating up in Asia, China launched its first lunar probe into space on Wednesday as the Communist Party moved a step closer to fulfilling its ambitions of one day reaching the moon.
The Chang’e-1 satellite, named after a Chinese goddess who flew to the moon, lifted off at 6:05 p.m. Officials and tourists watched the launching at a site in Sichuan Province, while state television provided coverage to the rest of the nation.
The moon probe is expected to orbit the moon for the next year, providing satellite images and other information as China prepares to launch a space vehicle to the moon by 2012 and then send an astronaut by 2020. Within an hour of blastoff the probe’s solar panels had been activated, and space officials declared the launching a success.
“The launch was very successful, and everything is proceeding just as planned,” Wu Ji, director of the Space Science and Applied Research Center, told Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency.
In recent years, China’s space program has attracted international attention for its ambitions and fast-rising technological prowess. In 2003, China became only the third nation after the United States and the former Soviet Union to send a man into orbit — a feat it has since replicated. However, the United States and other nations reacted with alarm when China successfully blasted one of its own aging weather satellites out of orbit in a military test.
China is not the only emerging space power in Asia. Last month, Japan stole a bit of China’s thunder by launching its own lunar probe, and India plans its own lunar orbiter next year. Technological development is a motivator for all three countries, but so are nationalistic pride and regional rivalry.
“As lunar exploration embodies our overall national strength, it is very significant for raising our international prestige and our national unity,” Ouyang Ziyang, a top scientist with China’s space program, told People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s most authoritative newspaper.
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