Japan has managed to land its own “Moon Sniper” rover on the moon, but the lander does not generate electricity, the Japanese space company said on Friday, a historic achievement for Japan as it joins a select organization of only four other countries, including domestic and private. Companies are rushing to claim a foothold in the emerging regional economy.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said it landed its Smart Lander for Investigating Moon on the lunar surface, later confirming the mission as a “minimum success” after the agency received a signal from the rover.
The lander is operating on limited battery power that is only expected to last a few hours before going dark, according to the agency, which said the lander’s solar cell was not generating energy.
JAXA is investigating what is caused the solar cell issue, agency officials said at the press conference, suggesting the spacecraft was likely not pointing in the intended direction.
The lander began its descent at 10 a. m. Eastern time and landed about 20 minutes later, shortly thereafter in Japan. The country’s local company live-streamed the operation via YouTube.
The probe is nicknamed “lunar sniper” because of the precision navigation technology it uses: JAXA hoped to land the rover on the lunar surface within a hundred meters of a given target, a significant improvement over landing accuracy. previous moles. which had landing zones that extended for miles.
JAXA officials said the good fortune of the mission would mean a new era of space and the shift from “landing where we can” to “landing where we want. “
Good luck also allows Japan to join an elite club made up of just four countries (the United States, the Soviet Union, China, and India) that have landed safely on the moon.
The Japanese attempt at a moon landing comes a day after the sudden disappearance of Astrobotic Technology’s Peregrine lander. The Pittsburgh-based company had hoped to be the first personal company to safely land on the moon, but the spacecraft suffered a “critical” fuel leak in a while after launch on United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur rocket. Its failure comes after Japan’s ISpace crashed a lander onto the lunar surface last year and Israel’s SpaceIL failed to land in the moon’s sea of serenity in 2019.
Several other companies, as well as Astrobotic again, are potentially poised to become the first private firm to land safely on the Moon in other launches later this year. The missions are part of a public-private initiative NASA hopes will develop the space economy and lower the costs of missions. The agency has selected 14 American companies—including Astrobotic, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Lockheed Martin Space—as potential bidders for contracts worth up to $2.6 billion through 2028. NASA also encourages vendors to take commercial payloads alongside its contracted material.
Multiple factors, such as navigational issues, gravity, dust, and lack of environment, make it difficult to land safely on the Moon. For a long time, this feat was maintained exclusively by two countries, the USSR and the United States, which have been joined in the last decade by China (2013) and India (2023). Even having done so before is no guarantee of good luck and the lunar surface is littered with remnants of failed missions, plus a Russian attempt last year.
These Will Be the Next Private Missions to the Moon After the Ferocious Failure of the Peregrine Lander (Forbes)