Jakarta –
Japan’s ‘Moon Sniper’ mission launches to land on the surface of the Moon with precision. While most Moon landings are designed to land within a few kilometers, this mission aims to land within just 100 meters of its target.
A rocket carrying the Smart Lander for Investigating (SLIM) probe was successfully launched on the morning of September 7 from the Tanegashima Space Center in southwest Japan, according to Japan’s national space agency JAXA.
Just 14 minutes after liftoff, the rocket released the satellite, placing it into orbit around Earth where it will study the formation of structure in the universe and the evolution of galaxy clusters.
Meanwhile, the SLIM probe is on its long journey to the lunar surface, ready for a ‘precision landing’ sometime in early 2024. If it succeeds in doing this, Japan will become the fifth country to successfully land on the Moon.
The primary goal of the Moon Sniper mission is to demonstrate the use of high-precision landing technology for future lunar and planetary exploration.
Spread with rocky terrain and steep slopes, the Moon’s surface is not easy to traverse. To make observations in the field, rover robots often have to travel long distances across this unforgiving landscape.
JAXA explained that this mission is expected to demonstrate how precision landings will make lunar exploration more effective and easier in the future. This could prove crucial for sustainable water resource hunting missions, which are likely to be limited to very specific areas.
“SLIM’s big goal is to prove a high-accuracy landing to achieve the goal of ‘landing where we want’ on the lunar surface, not ‘landing where we can’,” said JAXA President Hiroshi Yamakawa as quoted by Reuters.
Japan made several moon landings but failed in recent times. In November 2022, JAXA launched the OMOTENASHI lander, but lost contact before reaching the Moon so the landing attempt was aborted.
In April this year, a Japanese startup attempted the first private landing mission on the Moon, but lost communication with its spacecraft and ultimately failed.
The moon is now an exploration destination for countries that have space technology. Competition has become increasingly fierce and busy since India, with its Chandrayaan-3 mission, became the first to successfully land on the south pole of the Moon.
A few days earlier, Russia had the same ambition to achieve this record before India, but failed. A Russian probe crashed into the Moon after entering an uncontrolled orbit, leaving a new crater on the Moon.
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(rns/rns)
2023-09-12 06:30:05
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