Japan has initiated a lunar exploration mission with the launch of its lunar spacecraft, marking the country’s ambition to become the fifth nation globally to land on the moon.
The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) was successfully launched atop a Japanese H-IIA rocket from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan.
The mission, nicknamed the “Moon Sniper,” aims to achieve pinpoint accuracy in lunar landing, with SLIM slated to land within 100 meters (328 feet) of its target site on the lunar surface.
This precision is significantly closer than the typical landing range of several kilometers on celestial bodies.
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“By creating the SLIM lander, humans will make a qualitative shift towards being able to land where we want and not just where it is easy to land,” Japanese space agency JAXA said before the launch. “By achieving this, it will become possible to land on planets even more resource-scarce than the Moon.”
Japan’s national space agency, JAXA, expressed the significance of this endeavor, stating that it marks the first instance of a pinpoint landing on a celestial body with significant gravity.
The mission, valued at $100 million, is projected to reach the moon by February of next year.
To date, only four nations—the United States, Russia, China, and India—have successfully landed spacecraft on the moon. India notably achieved a historic milestone by landing near the moon’s unexplored south pole last month.
Japan, however, has faced challenges in previous lunar missions. Last year, it lost contact with a lunar probe called Omotenashi, which was part of the United States’ Artemis 1 mission.
Additionally, the Japanese Hakuto-R Mission 1 lander, developed by startup ispace, crashed in April during its descent to the lunar surface.
The H-IIA rocket used for the recent launch also carried the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) satellite, a collaborative project involving JAXA, NASA, and the European Space Agency.
XRISM will examine the speed and composition of matter found between galaxies, offering insights into celestial object formation and the universe’s origin.
David Alexander, director of the Rice Space Institute at Rice University in the US, noted the significance of XRISM in understanding hot plasma’s properties, which could have diverse applications such as wound healing, semiconductor manufacturing, and environmental cleanup.
Japan’s space program has faced recent setbacks, including the failure of the Epsilon small rocket launch in October 2022 and an engine explosion during a test in July.
Nevertheless, Japan remains committed to its lunar exploration goals, with plans to send astronauts to the moon in the late 2020s.
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