Tokyo 7 Sep : Japan cleared the way to become the fifth nation in history to set foot on the moon early next year with the launch on Thursday of its lunar exploration spacecraft atop a home-built H-IIA rocket.
According to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the rocket successfully launched the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) from Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan. Last month, unfavorable weather caused three postponements in a row.
Japan’s “moon sniper” mission intends to land the SLIM spacecraft only 100 meters from its intended target area on the lunar surface. By February, the $100 million expedition should have arrived at the moon.
In the previous year, Japan’s previous two lunar landing efforts were unsuccessful. A November attempt at a landing was postponed when JAXA lost communication with the OMOTENASHI lander. In April, the Japanese startup ispace 9348.T’s Hakuto-R Mission 1 lander crashed while attempting to touch down on the moon.
The X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) satellite, a collaboration between JAXA, NASA, and the European Space Agency, is also being launched on Thursday by the H-IIA rocket.
The rocket was built and launched by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries 7011.T. This was the 47th H-IIA rocket that Japan has launched since 2001, raising the vehicle’s success rate to about 98 percent.