Asia’s race to the Moon began yesterday when Japan launched an unmanned lunar probe, the most ambitious mission of its kind since the United States’ Apollo missions of the 1970s.

The lunar orbiter Kaguya, named after a Moon princess in a Japanese fairytale, was launched from Japan’s space centre on the small southern island of Tanegashima.

The 55 billion yen (£240 million) Selenological and Engineering Explorer (SELENE), to give it its full name, will orbit the Earth twice before beginning a 20-day, 237,500-mile (380,000-km) journey to establish an orbit around the Moon.

It is the first in a series of lunar exploration programmes by Asian nations. China expects to launch the lunar orbiter Chang’e1 by the end of the year, and India’s Chandrayaan-1 is scheduled for lift-off next year, when the United States will also launch its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The three-tonne Kaguya will orbit 60 miles above the Moon for a year before it runs out of energy and will deploy two small 50kg satellites, equipped with 14 observation instruments and high-definition cameras to scrutinise the terrain, measure the gravity and search for hydrogen. Information gathered by the probes will be used to draw conclusions about the Moon’s origin and evolution.

The success is a welcome morale raiser for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), which has ambitions to send astronauts to the Moon by 2025. The H-2 rocket, which carried the Kaguya yesterday, has suffered repeated failures.

In 2003 the agency suffered humiliation when two spy satellites had to be destroyed remotely minutes after take-off because they had strayed off-course. The launch of the Kaguya was four years behind schedule and was delayed further last month when faulty components were found.

“This programme is very important for science throughout the world,” said Hajime Inoue, JAXA’s director of space research. “If it is completed successfully it will push back the frontiers of humanity beyond Earth and heighten Japan’s technological status.”

Satoki Kurokawa, a spokesman for the agency, said: “Japan aims to build a station on the surface of the Moon in 2025 and so we need to understand the Moon. We need to develop the fundamental technology.”

Eastern star trekkers Indian

Space Research
Organisation Founded 1972
Budget £400m
Greatest achievement: First Indian satellite launched in 1975

Chinese National Space Administration
Formed 1993
Budget £1.3bn per year
Greatest achievement: Successfully destroying one of its own defunct weather satellites 1,250 miles above the Earth

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
Formed 2003
Budget £775m
Greatest achievement: Launch of lunar probe

Sources: CNSA, ISRO, JAXA, Times archive

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