Japan Launches 2 Ambitious Missions; SLIM Moon Lander To Make Lunar Landing Attempt in 4 Months

Japan launched two missions this week. The Asian country will also attempt to land on the moon in a few months.

Japan Launches 2 Missions

Japan launched two large-scale missions into orbit - a cutting-edge lunar lander and a potent X-ray space telescope - Wednesday (Sept. 6). At 7:42 p.m., a Japanese H-2A rocket carrying the SLIM moon lander and the XRISM space telescope launched from Tanegashima Space Center. EDT (23:42 GMT; September 7 at 8:42 a.m. in Japan).

Weather-related delays caused the launch to occur around ten days later than anticipated. Precisely one hour after takeoff, both spacecraft were successfully deployed one after the other.

If all goes as planned, SLIM ("Smart Lander for Investigating Moon") will aim to make Japan's first-ever soft lunar landing in a few months. A precise touchdown will open the door for even more ambitious accomplishments down the road.

SLIM is a tiny spacecraft measuring only 7.9 feet (2.4 meters) in height, 8.8 feet (2.7 meters) in length, and 5.6 feet (1.7 meters) in width. It weighs around 1,540 pounds (700 kilograms) at liftoff, although about 70% of its weight was propellant.

The primary spacecraft, called XRISM (X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission), is on its way to a position in low Earth orbit. XRISM is a joint project of the European Space Agency (ESA), NASA, and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

The telescope will use high-energy X-ray photons to investigate the universe, as its full name suggests.

Matteo Guainazzi, the project scientist for XRISM at the European Space Agency, said in a statement that X-ray astronomy allows them to investigate the universe's most intense processes as it holds the key to resolving critical issues in contemporary astronomy, including how the universe's greatest structures develop, how the cosmic matter from which humans ultimately are made is distributed, and how huge black holes in the centers of galaxies shape them.

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SLIM to Make Lunar Landing Attempt

SLIM will enter lunar orbit after taking a lengthy, looping, and fuel-efficient path in three to four months. After another month of observation, it will try to land inside Shioli Crater, a 1,000-foot-wide (300-meter) impact basin on the moon's near side located at 13 degrees south latitude.

The probe makes a more accurate landing attempt than previous lunar landers, which plans to touch down within 330 feet (100 m) of a specific site inside Shioli Crater. The objective is to show pinpoint-landing technology that would allow for greater in-depth study of the moon and other celestial bodies.

According to JAXA officials, the SLIM lander will enable humans to take a qualitative leap toward the ability to land anywhere they choose rather than merely where it is convenient to do so in the past. By accomplishing this, it will be feasible to set foot on worlds that have even fewer resources than the moon.

Several countries, including India and Russia, made a lunar landing attempt this year. India's Chandrayaan-3 made a historic successful landing last month. However, Russia's Luna 25 probe failed after the country lost communication with its robotic spacecraft days before the anticipated landing.