China launches lunar probe carrying 'Jade Rabbit' buggy

A rocket carrying China's Chang'e-3 lunar probe takes off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center on December 2, 2013.
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The Chang'e-3 lunar probe, which includes the Yutu or Jade Rabbit buggy, blasted off on board an enhanced Long March-3B carrier rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in China's southwestern Sichuan province at 1:30 a.m. (1730 GMT).

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President Xi Jinping has said he wants China to establish itself as a space superpower, and the mission has inspired pride in China's growing technological prowess. State television showed a live broadcast of the rocket lifting off.

If all goes smoothly, the rover will conduct geological surveys and search for natural resources after the probe touches down on the moon in mid-December as China's first spacecraft to make a soft landing beyond Earth.

"The probe has already entered the designated orbit," the official Xinhua news agency quoted Zhang Zhenzhong, director of the launch center, as saying.

"I now announce the launch was successful."


In 2007, China launched its first moon orbiter, the Chang'e-1 - named after a lunar goddess - which took images of the surface and analysed the distribution of elements.

The lunar buggy was named the Jade Rabbit in a public vote, a folkloric reference to the goddess's pet.

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China is looking to land a probe on the moon, release a moon rover and return the probe to the Earth in 2017, Xinhua said.

Beijing insists its space program is for peaceful purposes, but the U.S. Department of Defense has made clear it wants to prevent China's increasing space capabilities giving it any strategic advantage.

China says it will share the technological achievements of its manned space program with other nations, especially developing ones, and will offer to train astronauts from other countries.