According to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Japan attempted to become the fifth nation to land on the moon on Wednesday by sending a rocket there.
The H-IIA rocket took off at 7:42 p.m. ET from Tanegashma Space Center – – situated on one of Japan’s southern islands – – after weather patterns prompted the send off being deferred multiple times between Aug. 25 and Sept. 1.
Installed the rocket were the Shrewd Lander for Researching Moon (Thin) – – which is a lunar lander – – and the X-beam Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM), the two of which effectively isolated after send off, as indicated by the organization.
According to JAXA, SLIM is attempting to land on the moon precisely—within 100 meters (328 feet) of its target—rather than “somewhere on the moon.”
The organization hopes that this demonstration will open the door to a novel landing technique for future missions to the moon and even other planets.
“In anticipation of future solar system science exploration, we will realize weight reduction for landing on planets with severe resource constraints and mounting higher performance observation equipment,” JAXA said. “We humans will achieve a qualitative shift from the traditional landing, where it is easy to land, to landing where we want to land.”
SLIM is not expected to land until early 2024 due to its fuel-efficient route.
Japan will become the fifth nation after the United States, Russia, China, and India to land on the moon if the mission succeeds. India became the fourth nation to do so when its spacecraft landed on the moon on August 23. It was the first nation to do so in the lunar south pole region, where it is expected to stay for two weeks to carry out experiments and collect data.
Russia had endeavored to play out a comparable mission to India, yet its Luna-25 space apparatus collided with the outer layer of the moon on Aug. 19 after Russia’s space office lost contact. NASA later distributed pictures showing a 33-foot hole left by Luna 25.
Meanwhile, JAXA describes XRISM as a space observatory, complete with a telescope, X-ray imager, and spectrometer for electromagnetic radiation detection.
It intends to measure the elements found in galaxies and stars as well as space plasma, which is the fourth state of matter and is made up of ionized gases.
According to the organization, XRISM will also investigate “the formation of large-scale structures formed by stars, galaxies, and groups of galaxies will be clarified in unprecedented detail.”
Japan has attempted to land on the moon before. The nation sent off the OMOTENASHI (Extraordinary MOon investigation Advances showed by NAno Semi-Hard Impactor) close by NASA’s Artemis I mission in November 2022.
It would have been the smallest lunar lander ever to reach the moon’s surface, weighing only 30 pounds. However, JAXA was forced to scrub recovery operations after losing communication within a day.
In addition, a private lunar landing mission known as Hakuto-R Mission 1 was launched in December 2022 with an attempt to land in April 2023. However, communication was lost, and the mission crashed.