China's lunar probe completes first orbital correction

China's lunar probe Chang'e-1 on Friday successfully carried out its first orbital correction allowing it to travel on the pre-set orbit on its exploration, which Beijing says has no "military motives".

Chinese space scientists issued the command for correction, igniting two small engines on Chang'e-1 to slightly modulate its trajectory and the spacecraft did it in eight minutes.

The orbital correction was planned for Thursday, but scientists did not go ahead with it as China's by far most sophisticated satellite unexpectedly travelled "precisely" on the pre-set path after it left the Earth orbit.

A second orbital correction might be carried out on Sunday, Wang Yejun, chief engineer of the Beijing Aerospace Control Centre, was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua news agency.

Chang'e-1, named after a mythical Chinese goddess who flew to the moon, was launched on October 24 aboard a Long March 3A carrier rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the southwestern province of Sichuan.

The satellite is expected to arrive in the Moon's orbit on November 5 and beam the first picture of the moon in late November before continuing its lunar exploration for one year.

Seeking to dispel fears about "space race", China's National Space Administration has said its first lunar probe has no military motives, either in its engineering or scientific objectives.

"China has undertaken astronautical activities with the principle of 'peacefully utilising space'," Pei Zhaoyu, the spokesman, said.

China has already declared it would make public the data collected by Chang'e-1 and share it with foreign countries.

Chang'e-1 is expected to send the data in a steady stream after the exploration equipment on the orbiter begins to work from November 18.

The moon orbiter is currently moving on a 24-hour orbit, travelling more than 500,000 km so far. Change'1 has to travel 1.59 million km before it reaches the moon orbit.

Fuelling global concerns about space arms race, China had destroyed one of its satellites with a ground-based missile in January.

The launch of Change'1 by China came within weeks after Japan put its satellite in high orbit over the moon in an undeclared space race in Asia, with India also working on its lunar mission.