Courtesy: Akihiro Ikeshita / JAXA

Tokyo: Japan put its $279 million Selenological and Engineering Explorer (SELENE) satellite into orbit around the moon on Friday, accelerating a space race in Asia between itself, China and India. According to Japanese space agency officials, the probe was set into a lunar orbit after completing a complicated navigational manoeuvre late on Thursday.

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) officials expressed their pleasure at the conclusion of the manoeuvre describing it as a big step for the mission. The probe will now gradually move into an orbit closer to the surface of the moon, before commencing a yearlong observational mission. In terms of its scope, the SELENE probe is the largest lunar mission ever mounted after the US Apollo programme, according to Japanese officials.

The mission involves a main satellite - called "Kaguya," after a legendary moon princess - and two smaller satellites. While the "Kaguya" will move in a circular orbit, at an altitude of about 60 miles, the two smaller satellites will rotate in elliptical orbits.

According to JAXA officials, the observation phase will commence in mid-to late-December, and data from these probes will be used to study the moon''s origin and evolution.

The mission is running four years behind schedule, but comes just in time for Japan as it puts the nation ahead in a new race to the moon with competing Asian nations, China and India. While China expects to launch a lunar probe by the end of the year, India will follow with an unmanned lunar mission in 2008 and a manned programme by 2015.

China''s lunar orbiter will use stereo cameras and X-ray spectrometers to map three-dimensional images of the lunar surface and study its dust.

India''s unmanned moon mission, Chandrayaan-1, is expected to take off on its journey in April 2008. The manned space mission will follow in 2015.

Japan launched its first satellite in 1970 and a fly-by moon probe in 1990. SELENE was launched on Sept. 14 aboard one of JAXA''s mainstay H-2A rockets from Tanegashima, an island where the agency''s space centre is located.

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