China will need to overcome a shortage of technical staff as it develops technologies for its second lunar probe, officials say, even as their first such spacecraft executes with clockwork precision the maneuvers that will take it to the Moon. Amid a blaze of publicity that has captivated China’s population with space exploration, the country’s space engineers are giving unusually frank details about their plans and problems.

BEIJING - China's long-planned Long March 5 heavy rocket, comparable to the U.S. Delta IV, will be a family of launchers to be built at a plant at Tianjin, where construction began this week. The rockets will go into service in 2013 at the new Wenchang launch base on the island of Hainan, which has also been long proposed. Wenchang itself is to be ready by 2012. The diameter of Long March 5 will be 5 meters (16 feet, 5 inches), up from the 3.35 meters (11 feet) of the current Long March 3.

Australia's Virgin Blue Airlines is taking yet another step away from the budget airline model by introducing premium economy seats comparable with some of its competitor's business seats. As each budget carrier searches for the best service mix to suit its market, Virgin Blue has probably moved the furthest toward the full-service model. The latest move comes as an aggressive new operator, Singapore's Tiger Airways, expands at the no-frills end of the Australian market.