China's lunar probe travels 70 million km into deep space

BEIJING: China's second lunar probe, Chang'e-2, has successfully travelled more than 70 million km into deep space, the longest voyage of a Chinese spacecraft so far, a senior engineer said today.

Chang'e-2 was launched on October 1, 2010 to verify crucial technologies for Chang'e-3.

It set off from its moon orbit for outer space in June 2011 after finishing all of its tasks.

Chang'e-2 is expected to travel as far as 300 million km from the Earth after which it will return to perigee of about seven million km from the earth around 2029, said Zhou Jianliang, chief engineer of the Beijing Aerospace Control Center.

The probe will reach 100 million km from the Earth in July this year, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The control center has made many breakthroughs in fuel use and orbital decay technologies, which will boost China's future deep space exploration, Zhou said.