PROUD MOMENT: Premier Wen unveiling a photo of the moon, pieced together from 19 images captured by Chang'e I, at a ceremony in Beijing yesterday. -- PHOTO: XINHUA

The black-and-white photo, pieced together from 19 individual shots taken by the Chang'e I moon orbiter on Nov 20 and 21, shows a pockmarked lunar surface dotted with deep pits and wide craters. It covers an area roughly 460km in length and 280km in width on the lunar surface.

Pictures of the moon landscape were posted online by state media and an A4-size copy was given out to reporters at a briefing yesterday.

Premier Wen Jiabao unveiled the images yesterday morning at the Beijing Aerospace Control Centre, and proclaimed China's first lunar orbiter mission a 'complete success', reported state media.

'The full success of our country's first lunar exploration mission is helping to turn the Chinese nation's 1,000-year-old dream of reaching the moon a reality,' Mr Wen said.

'It shows that the Chinese people have the will, the ambition and the capability to write new splendid chapters while ascending the science and technology summit.'

The Chang'e I, named after a mythical Chinese fairy who flew to the moon, blasted off on Oct 24. It entered moon orbit earlier this month and will spend a year circling the moon, analysing and mapping its surface.

While China has insisted that all its space exploration projects are purely scientific and peaceful in nature, Chang'e I's launch has nevertheless raised the prospect of a space race in Asia.

Japan had launched its own lunar satellite just weeks ahead of Chang'e I's launch and recently unveiled stunningly clear images transmitted back by its probe. India is expected to fire off a satellite of its own next year.

A top China National Space Administration (CNSA) official yesterday refused to be drawn into a comparison of the images taken by Japan's satellite and Chang'e I's pictures.

'I have not seen the pictures of the moon's surface taken by Japan's satellite, only the ones taken of the Earth from the moon,' Mr Sun Laiyan, CNSA's administrator, told reporters. 'I understand that their technology is also very good.'

Other space officials said yesterday at the press briefing that they were pleased with the 'high quality' of Chang'e I's images. It was evidence that 'all equipment on the probe is in good shape'.

China's probe is circling the moon from a distance of 200km, twice the distance that the Japanese satellite is orbiting at.

Mr Sun yesterday also downplayed China's plans to put a man on the Moon, despite previous reports in state media that China hoped to do so by 2020.

'There are no plans at the moment to send anyone to the moon,' he said, adding however that he was confident that China would 'one day' land an astronaut on the lunar surface.

The 1.4 billion yuan (S$280 million) launch of Chang'e I marks the first stage of China's three-part lunar exploration plans, which include landing a lunar orbiter on the moon and having a lunar probe return to the Earth with moon samples within the next decade.

tracyq@sph.com.sg