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JAXA launched a moon lander and space telescope on the same rocket<\/p>\n
BJ Warnick\/Newscom\/Alamy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n
Japan has launched two ambitious space missions on a single rocket, aiming to land a craft on the moon and position a separate X-ray telescope in Earth orbit.<\/p>\n
The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) will, if successful, make Japan only the fifth country after the US, the Soviet Union, China and India to make a soft landing on the moon. It has been nicknamed \u201cMoon Sniper\u201d by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) because it is designed to use a host of sensors and cameras to make a highly accurate landing within a circle with a radius of just 100 metres.<\/p>\n
The mission is the third moonshot in the past two months, after India launched its Chandrayaan-3 mission on 14 July and Russia began its Luna 25 mission on 10 August. Luna 25 overtook Chandrayaan-3 on its way to the moon, but ended in failure with a catastrophic crash, while India\u2019s mission went perfectly to plan.<\/p>\n
SLIM also comes after the failure of two previous Japanese moon missions, OMOTENASHI and the privately built Hakuto-R. It\u00a0was launched on a H-IIA rocket from the Tanegashima Space Center on 7 September, first deploying the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) telescope a little over 14 minutes after take-off and then separating the SLIM mission after around 47 minutes. The launch had been scheduled for 23 August but was delayed due to poor weather conditions.<\/p>\n The moon probe will take up to four months to reach lunar orbit using a fuel-efficient route, then spend around a month orbiting before attempting a landing in 2024. It will land on its five legs, with the shock being absorbed by a 3D-printed aluminium dome.<\/p>\n After landing, it will deploy a spherical probe called Sora-Q, which is slightly larger than a tennis ball and partly designed by the Japanese toy-maker responsible for creating Transformers, to roll across the lunar surface, as well as a second probe called Lunar Excursion Vehicle 1 (LEV-1), which will \u201chop\u201d across the surface.<\/p>\n XRISM is a collaboration between JAXA, NASA and the European Space Agency and will provide astronomers and astrophysicists with a way to explore deep space as it orbits Earth at an altitude of around 550 kilometres. JAXA didn\u2019t respond to a request for interview, but announced that XRISM has deployed its solar panels and made radio contact with a base station on Earth.<\/p>\n Topics:<\/p>\n<\/section><\/div>\n