Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
A flying model of the JAXA Moon Sniper, a smart lander for lunar exploration, can be seen on January 25 at Mitsubishi Electric Corp.’s Kamakura factory in Japan.
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of Landing craft “Moon Sniper” A spacecraft developed by the Japanese space agency successfully entered lunar orbit on Christmas Day. This milestone brings the country one step closer to achieving its goal of landing the first robotic spacecraft on the moon.
In its current orbit, the lander circles the Moon approximately every 6.4 hours. But over the next few weeks, the spacecraft will gradually tighten its orbit and move closer to the moon’s surface in preparation for a historic touchdown attempt scheduled for mid-January.
If successful, Japan would become the fifth country to achieve such a feat, and the third in the 21st century.
China and India Currently, the two countries are the only countries to have safely landed on the moon this century, and their efforts to reach the lunar surface are characterized in part by efforts to identify and exploit the moon’s natural resources for future long-term human missions. It signals the arrival of new competition.
Japan’s robotic probe will attempt to demonstrate a ‘pinpoint’ landing with extreme precision, collecting data on lunar rocks that could help scientists better understand the moon’s formation It’s planned.
Approaching for landing
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced on December 25 that the lunar lander was inserted into an elliptical orbit from an altitude of approximately 370 miles (600 kilometers) to 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers).
Over the next three and a half weeks, the spacecraft’s orbit will rise nearly 9 miles (15 kilometers) above the surface before beginning its final descent.
Moon Sniper Lander — also known as SLIM or SLIM Smart lander to explore the moon — Attempt a soft touchdown on January 19th at 10:20 a.m. ET or January 20th at 12:20 a.m. Japan Standard Time.
The SLIM light lander will target a landing zone of approximately 328 feet (100 meters), rather than the usual kilometer range.
Because of its accuracy, the mission was nicknamed “Moon Sniper.”
If SLIM reaches the moon’s surface, it is expected to explore a site near the small impact crater known as Scioli, near the Apollo 11 landing site where NASA astronauts first landed in 1969.
The United States remains the only country to have landed humans on the moon, but NASA has not soft-landed astronauts or robotic vehicles there. Apollo 17 mission in 1972.
Both are personal developments spaceship Japan-based company Ispace and lunar lander A spacecraft launched by the Russian space agency Roscosmos attempted a touchdown in 2023, but failed.
Each robot ship crash-landed after experiencing navigational problems.
A lunar lander developed by India’s space agency, the Indian Space Research Organization, successfully landed in August, making it the fourth country to do so, after the United States, China and the former Soviet Union.
An Indian spacecraft landed near the moon’s south pole. Scientists believe there are valuable reserves of water ice there, and they became the first country to send a probe to the region.
One year of moon landing missions
After Japan’s Moon Sniper spacecraft attempted a landing, the United States aims to launch up to three robotic vehicles to the moon’s surface within the next year.
And NASA plans to send astronauts into lunar orbit at the end of 2024.
If successful, Artemis II Mission That would pave the way for another mission that could land humans on the moon later this decade.
NASA’s crewed mission could bring astronauts back to the moon for the first time since the 1970s.