A Long March 3C rocket with the Chang'e-2 probe took off from the Xichang launch center at about 1100 GMT.
The rocket will shoot into orbit plane trans-months, after which the satellite is expected to reach the Moon in about five days.
Chang'e-2 will be used to test the key technologies and gather data for future landings.
China says it will send a rover on the next mission, and also has the ambition to put humans on the lunar surface of the body in the future.
The Xinhua News Agency said the Chang'e-2 will circle just 15 kilometers (nine miles) above the gravel to take photos of possible landing sites.
It is China's second lunar probe - the first was launched in 2007. The craft stayed in space for 16 months before being intentionally crashed on to the Moon's surface.
Space ambitions
China launched its first manned flight into low-Earth orbit in 2003; and two more followed, with the most recent one in 2008.
So far, only three countries have managed to independently send humans into space: China, Russia and the US.
In 2008, a Chinese astronaut, fighter pilot Zhai Zhigang, performed a spacewalk - the first in his country's history.
He stayed outside the Shenzhou-7 capsule for 15 minutes; the exercise was seen as key to China's ambition to build an orbiting station in the near future.
source : BBC
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