Astronauts and experts from China's manned spaceflight project told students in east China's Shandong Province on Wednesday that the Chang'e-2 lunar probe is expected to be launched in early October, Qilu Evening News reported.

Six Chinese astronauts participated in an interactive event with local youths in Tengzhou, Zaozhuang, including Yang Liwei, Fei Junlong, Nie Haisheng, Zhai Zhigang, Liu Boming, and Jing Haipeng. All of them have previously flown on manned space flights.

The Chang'e-2 satellite has been sent to the Xichang Satellite Launching Center and will be ready by the upcoming launch date, the newspaper learned from the event on September 22.

The report tentatively gave the launch date as October 1, but did not elaborate.

The main tasks of the Chang'e-2 are to perform tests of the key technologies that will be used for the Chang'e-3's lunar landing and record images of the Chang'e-3's landing area with a high-resolution stereo camera.

The experts said the Chang'e-2 will reach lunar orbit within 120 hours, much faster than the Chang'e-1 which changed its orbital direction four times and circled the earth for seven days.

Moreover, the Chang'e-2 will orbit 100 kilometers closer to the moon than its predecessor which was 200 kilometers from the moon's surface.

The Chang'e-1 was launched on October 2007 as part of China's ambitious three-stage moon mission. Named after a mythical Chinese goddess who flew to the moon, the Chang'e-1 was a milestone in Chinese space power advancement.

(CRIENGLISH.com September 26, 2010)