The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Tokyo

Japan said Friday it had successfully put its first lunar probe into the moon's orbit, stealing a march over China and India as an Asian space race heats up.

The Kaguya probe, named after a fairytale princess, is on the most extensive mission to investigate the moon since the US Apollo human spaceflight programme in the 1960s and 1970s, according to Japan's space agency. After it blasted into space last month on a domestically developed rocket from southern Japan, the lunar explorer orbited the Earth twice before firing its engine to change course. "The satellite successfully entered the moon's orbit We are glad that we achieved one of the big challenges in this mission," said Tatsuo Oshima, a spokesman from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).