(TIAN ZHAOYUN)

China's second unmanned lunar probe, Chang'e-2, completed its second braking on October 8.

The satellite needs to brake three times before entering the designed 118-minute orbit around the Moon. The first braking, shown by virtual animation on a screen in the Beijing Aerospace Control Center in this picture, succeeded on October 6.

On its orbit just 15 km above the Moon, Chang'e-2 will take pictures of the Bay of Rainbows area, the proposed landing ground for the Chang'e-3 lunar probe.

Chang'e-2 blasted off aboard a Long March-3C carrier rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, in southwest China's Sichuan Province, on October 1.

It is China's first unmanned spacecraft to be boosted from the launch sitedirectly to the Moon, greatly reducing the journey time from that of its predecessor Chang'e-1.

Chang'e-1 took about 13 days to travel to a lunar orbit after orbiting the earth in a geosynchronous orbit and then transferring to the Earth-Moon route. Chang'e-2 is expected to travel for about 112 hours, or almost five days before reaching the moon.