New Delhi: Just three days after Chandrayaan-3’s expected soft landing, on August 26, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is preparing to launch the Smart Lander (SLIM) for a lunar investigation. According to news sources, the lander will launch as a ‘ride-share’ payload on an H2A rocket from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan at 00:34:57 UTC (6:04 am IST).
【Countdown: 3 Days to XRISM Launch】
Mid-August saw XRISM’s journey to the rocket assembly facility, safely nestled within the rocket fairing. 🛰️🚀 #JAXA @JAXA_en pic.twitter.com/4Fo9QiBvHZ
— XRISM (@XRISM_jp) August 23, 2023
NASA and JAXA collaborated to create XRISM. The two international space agencies’ ambitious project aims to investigate the most intensely heated areas, massive structures, and gravitationally dense objects in the cosmos. While JAXA’s SLIM intends to show off a tiny explorer’s precise landing skills.
The 2.4-meter-tall, 2.7-meter-wide, and 1.7-meter-deep SLIM lander will attempt to land within 100 metres of its intended location.
For landing on the moon’s surface, it has a landing radar as well as image-matching navigation and obstacle recognition tools.
https://t.co/RwaNydcBx5 pic.twitter.com/cKckk8oNzO
— XRISM (@XRISM_jp) August 23, 2023
According to reports, the mission’s primary goal is to show precise lunar landing procedures, which will make harder landing sites more approachable. “LUNAR-A will directly investigate the interior of the Moon, which could provide a lot of data on the Moon’s origin and evolution,” according to JAXA’s website.
Located at 13 degrees south latitude and 25 degrees east longitude on the near side of the moon, Shioli Crater, a relatively new impact crater with a 984-foot-wide impact feature inside Mare Nectaris, will be the mission’s intended landing site, according to Space.com.
The SLIM design, according to JAXA, might lead to compact, focused sample return missions as well as more cost-effective lunar and planetary landings.
Meanwhile, a number of lunar exploration initiatives, including the Lunar Trailblazer – NASA Lunar Orbiting Small Satellite, Peregrine Mission 1 – NASA CLPS Lunar Lander, IM-1 – NASA CLPS Lunar Lander, and Griffin Mission 1 – VIPER – NASA Lunar South Pole Rover, are scheduled to launch in the coming years.