"China is launching its first lunar probe in early December, state-run Xinhua news agency reported Tuesday, just over a decade after the country first sent an astronaut into space. The Chang'e-3 probe, which will blast off from a Long March 3B rocket in Sichuan province located in southwest China is expected to land on the moon's surface in mid-December, a spokesman for the China's State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence told Xinhua." (Quoted from article)