Will Japan achieve the world's first pinpoint landing on the moon? This is what the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is preparing for as its lunar mission is about to happen.
A commercial airline aircraft flies past the rising waxing gibbous moon above Kuwait City on December 3, 2023.
JAXA's Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM, also known as the Moon Sniper, is expected to reach Earth's natural satellite on Friday, Jan. 19, at 10:20 a.m. ET (or Saturday, Jan. 20, at 12:20 a.m. Japan Stanard Time).
This is a big deal for the Asian nation since its previous lunar mission attempt back in April 2023, which also aimed to make a precise location landing, failed as the spacecraft crashed.
Will Japan Succeed the World's First Moon Pinpoint Landing?
Just like other countries, Japan is trying to enter an elite space club, which is only occupied by the U.S., India, China, and Russia.
If JAXA's Moon Sniper mission achieves the world's first pinpoint landing, it would greatly benefit the Japanese nation, allowing it to enter a higher level of space travel.
However, if the SLIM aircraft fails, it would definitely cost Japan since failing means public embarrassment and the budget spent by the Asian country will be wasted, as reported by ABC News.
If the Moon Sniper ever achieved its goal, it would be the first time Japan would put a robotic explorer on the moon's surface. It will also make Japan the third country to achieve a moon landing in the 21st century.
Recently, lunar missions, such as NASA's Apollo launches, achieved extreme accuracy in reaching their targeted locations on the moon's surface. This is also what JAXA is trying to achieve with its SLIM spacecraft.
The difference between the Moon Sniper and the previous lunar missions is that JAXA is trying to make the world's first pinpoint landing on the moon using robotic probes that are lightweight and low-cost.
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Importance of Japan's Moon Pinpoint Landing Mission
An H-2A rocket carrying the ASTRO-H satellite, developed in collaboration between the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), NASA and other groups, lifts off at the Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture, southwestern Japan on February 17, 2016.
According to CNN World's latest report, JAXA's Moon Sniper could help Japan achieve more successful space missions.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said that if SLIM successfully lands on its targeted lunar location, the technology could allow next-gen space missions to land on other planets.
JAXA claimed this would be possible even on planets with less resources than Earth's natural satellite.
"Nowadays, there has been an increase in the knowledge of target astronomical objects and the details which should be studied have grown more specific so that high accuracy landings near the target of study have become necessary," explained JAXA.
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