A rocket carrying the SLIM lunar probe, with which Japan intends to make the country’s first moon landing, took off on Thursday, after three postponements since late August due to unfavorable weather conditions.
According to the live broadcast of the launch, the 47th H2A rocket, operated by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, moved on schedule at 08:42 (08:42 in Lisbon) from a base in Tanegashima, in the southwest of the country.
The SLIM lunar probe successfully separated from the 53-meter-long, four-meter-diameter H2A rocket about 45 minutes after liftoff, causing an explosion of joy and applause in the control center.
The probe, dubbed Moon Sniper, is expected to enter the natural orbit of Earth’s satellites in about three to four months and land within six months.
SLIM will attempt to land near Shioli crater, near the lunar equator, in the “most accurate landing” yet, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said.
JAXA intends to land SLIM within 100 meters of the target, to avoid steep slopes and uneven terrain, not least because suitable areas for exploring the Moon’s polar regions “are limited to a very small area.”
If it manages to land on the Moon, Japan will be the fifth country to do so, and the data obtained will be used in the North American international project Artemis, which aims to land astronauts on the Moon and ultimately explore Mars. .
In August, India successfully landed its first spacecraft on the Moon, joining the United States, the Soviet Union and China.
Russia, for its part, has just failed in a new attempt: its Luna-25 probe crashed on August 19 on lunar soil.
The takeoff of the H2A was followed live by more than 35,000 people through the YouTube platform, showing the enthusiasm generated by this double mission.
H2A also carried a new X-ray space observation satellite, called XRISM, placed in orbit around Earth 13 minutes after launch to investigate the evolution of the universe and space-time.
The satellite will explore the winds of plasma gases that blow through galaxies, a vestige of the birth and death of stars. Studying the X-rays emitted by this gas can help map how it spread through the universe.
The mission also aims to measure the X-ray light emitted by immensely dense objects, such as the black holes found at the centers of some galaxies, to help understand how they warp the space-time around them and how they affect galaxies.
XRISM was developed jointly with the US space agency NASA, representing a major evolution in Japan’s satellite program.
Source: TSF
