Nilanjan
Japan successfully launched their H-IIA rocket carrying the moon lander of their national space agency after three delays in the last month owing to challenging weather conditions.
JAXA or Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has confirmed that the rocked lifted off successfully from Tanegashima Space Centre which is located in southern Japan. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries was assigned the task of rocket manufacturing and supervising the launch.
The rocket is carrying JAXA’s Smart Lander that will investigate Moon (SLIM) spacecraft, fondly called as the “moon sniper” owing to its experimental accuracy in landing technology. SLIM’s planned lunar landing will take place early in 2024.
Additionally, the rocket also carried a research satellite that the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency or JAXA developed in collaboration with American Space Agency NASA and the European Space Agency.
The official name of Japan’s compact lunar lander is Smart Lander. It is designed to achieve precision landing within a range of 100 meters from its selected target on the Moon’s surface. The precision is way superior to the usual landing range of several kilometres on the lunar surface.
JAXA explained the importance of SLIM, saying, “By developing the SLIM lander, humans will be able to achieve a qualitative shift towards precision landing i.e. where we want to land instead of where it will be easy to land”. Moreover, the success of SLIM will enhance the possibility of future landing on celestial bodies having scarcer resources than what is found on the lunar surface.
Globally, JAXA stated, “There are no previous records of pinpoint landing on celestial bodies having significant gravity such as the Moon”.
Japan’s successful launch came two weeks after India created history when its spacecraft Chandrayaan-3 made a soft landing near the Moon’s South Pole. With this, India joined the elite club of USA, former Soviet Union and China who had their ‘Mission Moon’ successful though none of them have been to the lunar South Pole.
Japan has encountered several challenges in their previous attempts of landing on the moon over the last year. JAXA faced communication problems with a lander transported on a NASA rocket and it resulted in the cancellation of the attempt in November.
In addition, a Japanese start-up developed ipsace but the lander crashed in April while descending to the lunar surface.
