BEIJING, Oct. 24 -- China sent a satellite rocketing toward lunar orbit Wednesday evening, the latest step in an ambitious national program to shoot more astronauts into space, build a space station and eventually land Chinese astronauts on the moon.

The satellite, called Chang'e after a goddess who flew to the moon in Chinese legend, was lifted into space atop a white-painted Long March 3A rocket that blasted off at 6:05 p.m. local time (6:05 a.m. in Washington) from the Xichang Launch Center in Sichuan province in central China. The China National Space Administration said Chang'e was scheduled to enter a lunar orbit Nov. 5 and send back images and analyses of the moon's surface for about a year.

The trouble-free liftoff, with flame and white smoke billowing out of the rocket, was heralded by commentators and broadcast live on government television, underlining the Communist Party's desire to cultivate national pride in a growing list of accomplishments in space. In the same vein, the launch was scheduled just two days after a national party congress acclaimed Hu Jintao for a second five-year term as party leader, president and military chief.

"The launch shows our comprehensive state power," said Jiao Weixin, a professor at Peking University's School of Earth and Space Sciences. "It can help to improve our image in the world. Chinese would feel excited and greatly encouraged by just having a Chinese Nobel Prize winner, let alone having the chance to prove to the world our capability to explore space."

Jiao noted that China, which first shot a man into space in 2003 and repeated the exploit with a two-person team in 2005, still lags far behind the United States and Russia in space exploration. Closer to home, Japan shot a satellite into lunar orbit for the first time on Oct. 5, and India has a similar attempt on the drawing board. But Jiao described Wednesday's launch as a milestone for China's efforts, signifying Chinese engineers have the know-how to probe the moon.

"Chinese people will be encouraged by it," he said.

Li Hang, 24, who advises students seeking to study abroad, agreed, but he expressed doubt that exploits in space would have an immediate impact on the daily lives of China's 1.3 billion people. "However," he added, "it definitely will have an impact on China's national defense ability and the relationships between China and other countries."

In addition to its role as a rallying point for patriotism, China's 50-year-old space exploration program has begun to return commercial profits. Chinese rockets have for a number of years been launching other countries' satellites at attractive rates. Last May, Chinese technicians launched a Chinese-manufactured communications satellite for Nigeria, marking the first time they built a commercial satellite and sent it into orbit on contract for another country.

"By launching the lunar obiter, we can further improve our technology for launch vehicles, satellite signal transmission and even facilities at the launch site," Jiao said. "This can help to extend our technology to the business field, like launching satellites for other countries."

Launch officials were definitely into the business spirit. They charged tourists a little over $100 apiece for access to two viewing platforms at the launch site, about 1,000 miles southwest of Beijing.

China has laid out plans to follow the Chang'e's lunar approach with an attempt to land a vessel on the moon and deploy a vehicle to rove the lunar surface within the next five years. According to the China National Space Administration, if that experiment is successful, the following step, over the subsequent five years, would be to send a ship to the moon that could gather soil samples and return to earth.

The goal of putting astronauts on the moon also has been much talked about in China. Hu Shixiang, who was deputy commander of the manned space flight program, said two years ago that China hopes to have people on the moon by the year 2020 if funding can keep up the pace. But the Chinese government, which draws up its space exploration plans in five-year slices, has avoided pinning itself down to achieve that goal by any publicly announced date.

Chinese space engineers, meanwhile, have scheduled another manned vehicle launch for next year, during which a space walk has been planned. A blueprint endorsed by the government also calls for a rendezvous between two spacecraft and the construction of a space laboratory in the coming years.

China is seeking to join the International Space Station program, which includes the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada, Brazil and 11 European Space Agency countries, according to Li Xueyong, vice minister of science and technology. Li said China's participation would be natural, since it is eager to cooperate with other countries in space exploration.

But in a more purely Chinese perspective, Yang Liwei, who was the first Chinese astronaut shot into space, said during the 17th National Congress last week that his colleagues in the space program have wondered about starting the Communist Party's first branch in space. It would be possible, he said, if China can develop a station large enough to hold three people -- the minimum for starting a cell.

(Washington Post)