A Chinese rocket carrying a probe destined for the Moon has blasted into space.
A Long March 3C rocket with the Chang'e-2 probe took off from Xichang launch centre at about 1100 GMT.
The rocket will shoot the craft into the trans-lunar orbit, after which the satellite is expected to reach the Moon in about five days.
Chang'e-2 will be used to test key technologies and collect data for future landings. China says it will send a rover on its next mission, and it also has ambitions to put humans on the surface of the lunar body at some future date. The Xinhua News Agency said Chang'e-2 would circle just 15km (nine miles) above the rocky terrain in order to take photographs of possible landing locations. It is China's second lunar probe - the first was launched in 2007. The craft stayed in space for 16 months before being intentionally crashed on to the Moon's surface.China launched its first manned flight into low-Earth orbit in 2003; and two more followed, with the most recent one in 2008.
So far, only three countries have managed to independently send humans into space: China, Russia and the US.
In 2008, a Chinese astronaut, fighter pilot Zhai Zhigang, performed a spacewalk - the first in his country's history.
He stayed outside the Shenzhou-7 capsule for 15 minutes; the exercise was seen as key to China's ambition to build an orbiting station in the near future. (bbc news)
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