In this photo released by China's official Xinhua news agency, China's first moon orbiter Chang'e 1 lifts off from the launch pad, 24 Oct 2007

National television broadcast the countdown and launch.

The unmanned probe is expected to enter the moon's orbit on November 1. There it will begin mapping the surface of the moon and conduct other explorations over a period of about a year.

The satellite is part of a program aimed at putting an unmanned vehicle on the moon by 2012 and eventually sending humans there.

China in 2003 became the third country in the world to send a man in to space.