By Japan has successfully launched a rocket carrying its lunar exploration spacecraft, marking a significant step towards becoming the fifth country to land on the moon.
The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced that the H-IIA rocket, developed in Japan, lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan. It successfully deployed the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM). Affectionately called the “Moon Sniper,” Japan’s goal is to land SLIM within a remarkable 100 meters (328 feet) of its intended target on the lunar surface, a much narrower margin compared to the usual range of several kilometres.
The Japanese space agency, JAXA, explained that achieving such precision landings would be a significant leap toward landing on more challenging, resource-scarce planets in the future. They also shared that SLIM would serve as a tool to observe some of the hottest regions of the universe.
Additionally, the XRISM satellite, also launched on the same rocket, will conduct high-resolution X-ray spectroscopic observations of the hot gas plasma wind in galaxies throughout the universe.
This $100 million mission is anticipated to reach the moon by February of the following year. Notably, only four nations have accomplished successful lunar landings to date: the United States, Russia, China, and India. India’s recent achievement of a soft landing on the moon’s unexplored south pole was particularly historic given its budget constraints.
Japan’s mission follows these milestones but comes after some challenges in its space program, including issues with rocket launches. Nevertheless, Japan remains committed to its goal of sending astronauts to the moon in the late 2020s.
