Julian Ryall
Sat, August 26, 2023
The probe has been dubbed the ‘Moon Sniper’ due to the precision
with which it is meant to hit its landing target - Jaxa
Japan is preparing to fire the latest shot in the intensifying international space race with the launch on Monday of its “Moon Sniper” lander mission.
A domestically built H2-A rocket is scheduled to take off from southern Japan on Sunday night, carrying a lander module that is expected to reach the lunar surface in four to six months.
The rocket, the launch of which has been pushed back due to poor weather, will also deploy an x-ray imaging satellite.
Earlier this week, India completed the historic landing of a craft near the lunar south, becoming only the fourth nation to achieve a so-called soft-landing on the Moon after the United States, Russia and China.
Japan’s hopes of keeping up in the race to exploit the Moon’s resources are now focused on the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (Slim), although the probe has been dubbed the “Moon Sniper” due to the precision with which it is meant to hit its landing target.
Less than 8ft high and weighing 1,545lbs, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa) is aiming to land its spacecraft within 300ft of its target on the surface, significantly better than the mile or more that is traditionally regarded as an accurate touch-down. The agency plans to put the probe down in the Sea of Nectar, in the lower latitudes of the near side of the Moon.
Japan is preparing to fire the latest shot in the intensifying international space race with the launch on Monday of its “Moon Sniper” lander mission.
A domestically built H2-A rocket is scheduled to take off from southern Japan on Sunday night, carrying a lander module that is expected to reach the lunar surface in four to six months.
The rocket, the launch of which has been pushed back due to poor weather, will also deploy an x-ray imaging satellite.
Earlier this week, India completed the historic landing of a craft near the lunar south, becoming only the fourth nation to achieve a so-called soft-landing on the Moon after the United States, Russia and China.
Japan’s hopes of keeping up in the race to exploit the Moon’s resources are now focused on the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (Slim), although the probe has been dubbed the “Moon Sniper” due to the precision with which it is meant to hit its landing target.
Less than 8ft high and weighing 1,545lbs, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa) is aiming to land its spacecraft within 300ft of its target on the surface, significantly better than the mile or more that is traditionally regarded as an accurate touch-down. The agency plans to put the probe down in the Sea of Nectar, in the lower latitudes of the near side of the Moon.
Jaxa is aiming to put the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon probe in the Sea of Nectar, in the lower latitudes of the near side of the Moon - AFP/Getty
“This is part of the space race, the race to find water in the form of ice near the polar regions“, said Kazuto Suzuki, a professor of science and technology policy at Tokyo University.
“But the primary purpose of this mission is to demonstrate the technology and techniques required to safely and accurately land on the Moon,” he said. “That is extremely difficult to do, partly because of the six-second delay in communications between control here on Earth and the lander, as we have seen recently with the Russian craft.”
The mission will also use a palm-sized, shape-shifting mini-rover developed with a toy company to investigate how the Moon was formed by examining exposed pieces of the lunar mantle.
The SORA-Q robot will unfold like a Transformer, splitting in half and exposing a pair of cameras and dividing its two hemispheres into wheels before springing into action.
Japan’s space programme has not been immune to failure, with communications lost with Jaxa’s Moon-lander Omotenashi in November last year. The first attempt by a private company to land a craft on the Moon also fell short in April, with J-Space saying its probe was damaged in a “hard landing”.
Rockets have also experienced problems, with a next-generation H3 model failing shortly after lift-off in March and an Epsilon rocket similarly destroyed five months previously. A ground test of an Epsilon S solid rocket motor last month ended in a devastating explosion after 50 seconds.
Jaxa is nevertheless undeterred from its mission, said Prof Suzuki, and the Slim mission is seen as a building-block for further exploration of our solar system.
“Currently it is Russia and China that are trying to establish a permanent base on the surface of the Moon, which is why they are searching for water in the polar regions, but Japan is allied with the US on its Artemis project,” he said.
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