TOKYO - Japan took a big leap forward on Friday by successfully launching a probe for the largest mission to the Moon since the US Apollo flights.

The Selenological and Engineering Explorer - or Selene - probe was launched aboard one of the space program's mainstays H-2A rockets from its launchpad on Tanegashima, the remote island where Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) space center is located.

Footage of the launch carried live on the Internet showed the rocket racing upward through slightly hazy skies to the southeast. JAXA said the craft's engines and navigation systems appeared to be operating normally.

"We're very pleased with how the flight is proceeding. The satellite has separated from the rocket as expected," JAXA spokesman Hiroshi Sekine said.

The $279-million Selene is slated to orbit around the Earth twice before proceeding to the Moon, a journey expected to take about three weeks.

The launch comes four years behind JAXA's original schedule. Japan launched a Moon probe in 1990, but it was a flyby mission unlike Selene, which is intended to orbit the Moon.

Japan canceled another moon shot, Lunar-A, which was to have been launched in 2004 but was repeatedly postponed because of mechanical and fiscal problems.

A mid-August launch date for Selene, too, had to be scrapped after some improperly installed components were discovered.

The Selene project is the largest lunar mission since the US Apollo program in terms of overall scope and ambition, outpacing the erstwhile Soviet Union's Luna program and NASA's Clementine and Lunar Prospector projects, JAXA said.

The Selene mission involves placing the main satellite in orbit at an altitude of about 100 km and deploying the two smaller satellites in polar orbits. Researchers will use data gathered by the probes to study the Moon's origin and evolution.

The main orbiter will remain in position for about a year.

Japan is considering a manned mission by 2025, too. But it's not the only Asian country trying to return to Earth's closest neighbor, for China also has plans to send a probe to the Moon, the Chang'e I.

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

Agencies