Japan Moon Mission Landing: Date, Time, Live Streaming And Other Details
A successful soft landing for the "Moon Sniper" would put Japan in an exclusive company, with just the US, USSR, China and India managing the feat already.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has announced that its Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) will attempt a soft-landing on the lunar surface on Friday.
A successful soft landing for the "Moon Sniper" would put Japan in an exclusive company, with just the US, USSR, China and India managing the feat already.
Landing descent preparations had begun based on operational results since insertion into lunar orbit and future plans, JAXA said earlier this week.
"It was therefore decided to move to the landing descent preparation phase on January 10, 2024, and the apolune (the furthest point from the Moon) descent manoeuvre was successfully executed and completed on January 14, 2024, at 17:32 JST, the space agency said.
The SLIM spacecraft is further confirmed to be inserted into a circular orbit at the planned altitude of approximately 600km. From now, the perilune (the closest lunar point) descent manoeuvre will be performed, and the perilune point will be lowered to an altitude of 15km on January 19, 2024.
JAXA's Moon Mission Landing: Date And Time
If everything goes as per plan, SLIM will begin the landing descent on January 19 at around 8:30 PM IST. Lunar landing is scheduled at 8:50 PM IST.
How To Watch Japan Moon Mission Landing Live?
The live streaming of the landing will be available on JAXA's official YouTube channel from 11:00 PM IST (23:00 JST) on January 19.
Designed to land within 100 meters (328 feet) of its target, SLIM “will kick-start a new era of lunar exploration by making it possible to land where we want to land, rather than where we have to,” JAXA Director Hiroshi Yamakawa said last month, according to Bloomberg.
The launch of Japan’s “Moon Sniper” mission came days after India scripted history by soft-landing the Vikram lander of Chandrayaan-3 on the lunar surface.
The X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM), and the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM), were launched onboard the H-IIA Launch Vehicle No. 47 (H-IIA F47) at 8:42:11 am on September 7, 2023 (Japan Standard Time, JST) from the Tanegashima Space Center.
SLIM(Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) aims to demonstrate “landing where it is desire to land”, pin-point landing technique and obstacle detection technique.
