Applause as China's Mars probe decouples

China launched its most ambitious Mars mission yet on Thursday in a bold attempt to join the United States in successfully landing a spacecraft on the red planet.

Footage from China's state broadcaster CCTV showed a Long March-5 carrier rocket taking off, with engines blazing orange, at around 12:40 p.m. from Hainan Island, south of China's mainland.

The command center announced 45 minutes after the blast off that the Mars probe had successfully entered the scheduled orbit.

It marked the second flight to Mars this week, after a United Arab Emirates orbiter blasted off on a rocket from Japan on Monday.

The U.S. is aiming to launch Perseverance, its most sophisticated Mars rover ever, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, next week.

China's tandem spacecraft — with both an orbiter and a rover — will take seven months to reach Mars, like the others.

If all goes well, Tianwen-1, or "quest for heavenly truth," will look for underground water, if it's present, as well as evidence of possible ancient life.

Unlike the two other Mars missions launching this month, China has tightly controlled information about the program — even withholding any name for its rover.

National security concerns have led the U.S. to curb cooperation between NASA and China's space program.