The Japanese probe Moon Sniper lands on the moon with

The Japanese probe “Moon Sniper” lands on the moon with unprecedented precision

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The Japanese space module Slim managed to land on the moon with unprecedented precision on the night from Friday to Saturday, assures the Japanese space agency Jaxa. The machine will now eject a spherical probe that will make it possible to carry out analyzes on the ground of rocks that are said to come from the still little-known lunar mantle.

Published on: 01/19/2024 – 5:37 p.m. Modified on: 01/19/2024 – 7:22 p.m

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Mission for Japan successful. The Japanese Space Agency (Jaxa) announced that its slim space module succeeded in attempting to land on the moon with unprecedented precision on the night of Friday, January 19th to Saturday, January 20th, but its solar cells do not produce any energy .

The Slim module (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon), which had been orbiting the rocky star since the end of December, had begun its descent around twenty minutes earlier at a speed of around 1,700 meters per second.

Based on telemetry data, “Slim appears to have landed. We are checking his status,” Shin Toriumi, a Jaxa official, said during a live broadcast.

This small unmanned spacecraft (2.4 m long, 1.7 m wide and 2.7 m high) was intended to land not only on the moon, but also within a radius of 100 meters from its target, with this radius being considered a high measurement in terms of precision. Hence his nickname “Moon Sniper”.

The Japanese probe Moon Sniper lands on the moon with

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“A huge technological advance”

It is common for lunar vehicles to land several kilometers away from their destination, which can complicate their exploration missions. And landing on the moon is more difficult than landing on asteroids – a feat that Jaxa, among others, has already achieved – because the gravity on the moon is stronger than on small celestial bodies.

Precisely landing on the moon was “a huge challenge” for Slim, said Emily Brunsden, director of the Astrocampus at the University of York.

Moon Sniper's accuracy represents “a huge technological advance that will enable the design of missions aimed at answering much more specific research questions.”

But this feat is “extraordinarily technologically difficult.” “Usually there is only one chance, so even the smallest mistake can lead to mission failure,” she warns.

The Slim module was intended to land in a small crater less than 300 meters in diameter called Shioli, from where the machine should be able to conduct soil analysis of rocks believed to be from the lunar mantle, the inner one structure of the earth's natural satellite. , which is still very little known.

These rocks “are crucial for studying the origin of the Moon and Earth,” emphasizes Tomokatsu Morota, a lecturer at the University of Tokyo and a specialist in space exploration.

Advance research on water resources

Slim carries a spherical probe barely larger than a tennis ball that can change shape to move around the lunar surface. It was developed by Jaxa in collaboration with Japanese toy giant Takara Tomy.

This Japanese mission also aims to advance exploration of water resources on the Moon, a key issue as the United States and China ultimately intend to establish inhabited bases there.

The presence of water ice has been detected at the bottom of craters in the moon's polar regions, which is now attracting attention.

The success of the Slim mission would allow Japan to “show its presence in space,” remembers Tomokatsu Morota.

More than 50 years after man's first steps on the moon by Americans in 1969, it has once again become the subject of a global race in which the rivalry between the US and China plays a central role.

But many other countries and private companies are also interested, such as Russia, which dreams of regaining the space glory of the USSR through a partnership, particularly with China or India, which was successful last summer. most recently his first moon landing.

Japan's Progress in Conquering Space

Japan's first two attempts to land on the moon failed. In 2022, a Jaxa mini-probe called Omotenashi (“Hospitality” in Japanese), which was aboard the American Artemis-1 mission, experienced a fatal battery failure shortly after it was ejected into space.

And in April 2023, a lander from the young private Japanese company ispace crashed on the lunar surface after failing the soft descent.

Reaching the moon remains a huge technological challenge even for the major space powers: The private American company Astrobotic, acting on behalf of NASA, announced on Thursday that its Peregrine lander was intentionally lost and probably disintegrated as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere without achieving his objective.

NASA has also postponed the next two missions of its major return program to the moon Artemis by almost a year to September 2025 and September 2026.

With AFP