Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has announced the space exploration project called Smart Lander to investigate the moon. The SLIM lander has already reached the Lunar orbit at 1.21 PM IST. The organization plans to land on the moon’s surface and explore there.
If everything goes well, the lander will follow the country that landed the rover on the moon after India. A soft landing on the moon’s surface is critical to the project. The organization is taking all the measures to keep the lander at a safe orbital distance.
When everything looks perfect, the lander will deploy to its final trajectory to land on the pre-destine place. Onboard computers will take over the final landing procedure and slowly perform gradual descend maneuver.
SLIM is currently orbiting in an elliptical lunar orbit. The orbital distance is connected to the moon’s south and north poles and circling in about 6.4 hours. During this period, the closest distance from the moon’s surface will be 600 kilometres, and the farthest will be 4000 kilometres.
In the final trajectory, the slow descent is performed using the instructions sent from the Earth. Slowly, the distance from the Earth’s surface will decrease, which will last till mid-January 2024. Perilune points will be decreased slowly to 15 kilometres till January 19. On the final day, the lander will descend to the moon on January 20.
From now until mid-January 2024, the Japanese space agency will lower the apolune point. The perilune point will also be reduced to an altitude of 15 kilometres on January 19. The lander will start descending towards the Moon on January 20.
This will be a crucial time because the lunar lander will lose the connection with the ground telescope. The onboard computers will take over the final descending manoeuvre. If everything goes well, the lander will have a soft landing on the moon’s surface.
Japan’s SLIM mission took off on September 6 this year. It was postponed several times due to the unexpected weather conditions. Finally, Japan successfully placed the lunar lander into orbit around the Earth. Once it was in t, the next step was to send it to the Lunar orbit. Japan chose a unique method: a long route to reach the moon.
The mission went as planned, and Japan’s SLIM lander reached the moon’s orbit. If Japan can land the lander on the moon, it will be the smallest and lightest spacecraft ever landing on its surface.
SLIM is the second Japanese mission to reach the moon. Another attempt earlier by the Private commercial company Hakuto last year ended a failed space mission. The lander crashed and landed on the lunar surface in April this year.
Many private companies are entering the industry after the success of various space agencies such as EURO Space, Dubai’s private space mission, and SpaceX’s reusable rocket technology.
India’s success on the moon landing mission on its second attempt also creates a massive buzz in the space industry. It caught the attention of the Asian countries and encouraged them to have their moon mission to showcase their technological development and ability to develop space rockets indigenously.
SLIM is the most miniature spacecraft sent to the moon’s orbit. It weighs just 200 kilograms. In comparison, Chandrayaan’s three lander was about 1750 kilograms. Japan’s moon mission is designed to demonstrate the space lander’s precision landing capability within 100 metres of the chosen site.
According to the JAXA, they have developed specialized software and precision landing technology to land the spacecraft near the set site. Also, the site set to land the SLIM lander is scientifically crucial. It aims to land near the small crater named Shinoli in the equatorial region.
When Japan lands its SLIM lander on the moon, it will set another milestone in space exploration. The team is consistently monitoring the lander’s position in the Moon’s orbit. Every single step is taken with high precision.
There is no chance of a mismatch. Any small mistake will change the orbital position of the SLIM lander, pulled by the Moon’s gravity, and crash land on the Moon’s surface. Therefore, the organization is taking all the necessary measures to keep the SLIM lander in a safe orbit.
