The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper The Spokesman-Review
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
Current Temperature
57°F
Current Conditions
Few clouds
View complete weather report
Subscribe now

China steps up space race with moon launch

A crowd watches China's first moon orbiter lift off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province Wednesday. The probe is the first step in a plan to land a man on the moon.Associated Press (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Ching-ching Ni and John Johnson Jr. Los Angeles Times
A crowd watches China's first moon orbiter lift off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province Wednesday. The probe is the first step in a plan to land a man on the moon.Associated Press (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)

BEIJING – Half a century after the Soviet Union beat the United States to outer space, China blasted off its first lunar orbiter Wednesday, catapulting the Asian nation onto the front lines of a new space race.

The Chang’e One satellite, named after a mythical beauty who flew to the moon, lifted off under cloudy skies in western China’s Sichuan province aboard a Long March A3 rocket. It will spend a year circling and studying the lunar surface and laying the groundwork for the goal of making China the first Asian nation to put an astronaut on the moon.

The liftoff was broadcast on state television, witnessed by government officials and about 2,000 space enthusiasts who paid about $100 each to see it on-site. This expensive technological spectacle was contrasted by the evacuation of thousands of farmers in nearby villages who had to temporarily put away their plows and walk away from their pigs as a safety precaution.

Beijing aspires to put an astronaut on the moon within 10 to 15 years, leaving it ahead of Japan, which launched an unmanned moon orbiter last month, and India, which hopes to do the same in April.

The launch of the Chang’e marks the first of a quest to land a moon rover, probably in 2012, and another one about five years later, to bring back soil samples.

China says its intentions are peaceful, but its space ambitions startled the world in 2003 when it became the third nation, after the Soviet Union and the United States, to send an astronaut into space aboard its own rocket.