Historic journey from Chang'e 6 lifts off

Local tourism authority in Wenchang has estimated that there would be at least 200,000 travelers flocking to Longlou, a township in the city that is home to the launch complex, on Friday to witness the launching moment of the daring lunar expedition.

According to the China National Space Administration, the Long March 5 rocket successfully placed the robotic lunar probe into an Earth-moon transfer trajectory, the gateway for our celestial neighbor.

Within the next several days, Chang'e 6 is programmed to fly along its moon-ward trajectory and make some correction operations before conducting a key braking maneuver to avoid accidentally flying past the moon. After that, the spacecraft will be captured by the moon's gravity and move into a lunar orbit.