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As the first US lunar landing mission in decades ends without reaching its goal, a Japanese-launched spacecraft is drawing closer to the moon and preparing for a historic landing attempt.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Intelligent Lunar Investigation Lander, or SLIM, is expected to touch down on the moon’s surface at 10:20 a.m. ET Friday, or 12:20 a.m. Saturday Japan Standard Time. If successful, the SLIM landing will mark Japan’s first time placing a robotic probe on the lunar surface — and will make it the third country to achieve such a feat in the 21st century, and the fifth to land a spacecraft landed softly on the moon since the Soviet Luna 9 Mission in 1966.
The spacecraft, also known as the “Moon Sniper” for its precision technology, will begin its descent toward the lunar surface at 10 a.m. ET. The landing will be streamed live on YouTube in Japanese and English.
“The start of the deceleration to the landing on the surface of the Moon is expected to be a breathless, numbing 20 minutes,” Kenji Kushiki, SLIM mission subproject manager, said in a statement.
The small-scale reconnaissance lander is designed to demonstrate a “pinpoint” landing at a specific location.
Other lunar landings, including NASA’s Apollo missions, have achieved extreme precision in reaching a specific zone, but SLIM technology aims to bring precision to low-cost and lightweight robotic probes. The hope, according to JAXA, is that the technology will enable the small lander to target specific locations on the moon, allowing SLIM to land even amid treacherous rocky terrain.
If successful, the technology could allow future missions to “land on planets closer than the moon,” according to the space agency.
“Today, knowledge of target astronomical objects has increased and the data to be studied has become more specific so that high-precision landings near the study target are required,” according to JAXA .
The SLIM lander will focus on a landing site that stretches 100 meters (328 feet) across. By comparison, Astrobotic Technology’s Peregrine Lunar Lander – which was the first US lunar lander to launch in more than 50 years – was targeting a landing zone that lasted a few kilometers before a fuel leak forced the spacecraft to abort its mission. abandonment
If SLIM misses this window to try to land, it will have another chance on February 16.
Game Moon Sniper
The SLIM lander launched in September along with the XRISM (pronounced “crisis”) satellite, also known as the X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission, a joint mission between JAXA and NASA. After launch, SLIM used its own propulsion system to head towards the moon. The spacecraft successfully entered an oval-shaped lunar orbit on Christmas Day.
Since entering an orbit that passes over the moon’s north and south poles, the lander has been moving closer and closer to the moon’s surface.
If the spacecraft hits successfully, it will briefly study the lunar surface just south of a dark spot on the moon called the Sea of Tranquility, the region where Apollo 11 landed in 1969.
Unlike other recent robotic missions aimed at the moon’s south pole, SLIM is targeting a site near a small lunar impact crater called Shioli, within a plain known as the Sea of Nectar that scientists suspect created ancient volcanic activity. Then, he will investigate the composition of rocks that could help scientists find the origin of the moon.
“A closer look at such minerals could reveal information about the structure and formation of the Moon’s interior,” according to JAXA. “However, ejecta crater sites are generally avoided because of the difficulty of landing within a small area of ejecta scattered on the sloping sides surrounding a crater.”
The SLIM probe has vision-based navigation technology, which JAXA refers to as “smart eyes.” The spacecraft will take photos of the lunar surface as it approaches and quickly locate the vehicle’s position on maps previously sketched out by lunar satellites, independently adjusting its trajectory as it approaches for landing.
Kushiki said that in those final moments, the SLIM lander will always be pulled towards the surface of the moon by the moon’s gravity, which will require the spacecraft’s engines to continuously fire.
“The landing is a one-shot game that cannot be undone,” he said.
A new lunar space race
The SLIM mission comes amid renewed international pressure to explore the moon.
After the United States, the former Soviet Union and China, India became the fourth country to execute a controlled landing on the moon when its Chandrayaan-3 mission landed near the moon’s south pole in August.
But other recent missions have highlighted how difficult it is to safely touch the lunar surface. Last year, Japanese company Ispace’s Hakuto-R lunar lander fell 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) before crashing into the moon during a landing attempt in April. A Russian mission called Luna-25 also landed in August in the country’s first attempt to return to the moon since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Similarly, the Falcon mission, which took off on January 8, was the first lunar landing mission to be launched from the United States in many years, but a critical fuel leak forced the lander to abandon its goals immediately hours later. The spacecraft is expected to burn up as it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere.
A private company, Astrobotic, developed Peregrine for NASA. Another commercial US lander, built for the space agency by a company called Intuitive Machines, could take off as early as mid-February.
Each of these recent robotic missions has focused on a different area of the moon, although much of the focus of this renewed lunar race is on the south pole. Scientists suspect that there may be ice water deposits in the region, parts of which are permanently shaded. These resources could be filtered into drinking water for astronauts on future crewed missions or even converted into rocket fuel for deeper exploration of the cosmos.
The south lunar pole poses several landing hazards with craters and rocks. Future missions will need to be able to land within a narrow area to avoid these features, which is one reason JAXA expects SLIM’s precision landing technology to be effective.
SLIM also has a lightweight design that could be advantageous as agencies plan more frequent missions to explore moons around other planets such as Mars. If SLIM is successful, JAXA argues, it will change missions from “landing when we can to landing when we want.”
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