Just a few hours ago, a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) H-IIA rocket launched loaded with the Moon Sniper, successfully lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center, which is located in the south of the country. Recall that the same launch was previously planned, but had to be canceled due to weather, so the country could not test its ability to reach our satellite after several failed missions that had taken place before.

However, the journey has only just begun it will take several more months to find out if it is successful or notand the point is that for this mission, Japan adopted an approach similar to that of the Indian Space Agency with its successful Chandrayaan-3 mission, which, as we told you, reached the surface of the Moon’s South Pole through a very unusual approach. to spatial exploration: an approach low cost.

Characteristic, the Japanese mission had a budget of about $100 million, which includes the design of a relatively long approach trajectory in which energy efficiency is prioritized, which, among other things, allows for a month of lunar orbit before attempting a lunar landing. Once this critical phase is complete, the goal is for the Moon Sniper, the mission’s lander, to analyze some of the elements of the environment selected for lunar contact. Unlike other lunar and exploration missions, in this case, the lander is the one that will analyze the environment, that is, it does not carry a rover or other type of vehicle for this purpose.

Something he has to prove with this landing is the ability to perform a fairly precise operationthe reason why the Shioli Crater, located inside the Cyrillus Crater, on the visible side of the Moon, was chosen, something that will be extremely complex, to the extent that Kenji Kushiki, the mission’s subproject director, mentioned the execution of this phase as «20 minutes of breathless, mind-numbing horror»which, yes, pursues a key purpose for the future of space exploration, and which can be summed up as «land where we want, not where we can». This of course explains why the lander is called the Moon Sniper, which means the agency will need the precision of a sniper to get the lander to the desired point and successfully.

If the Moon Sniper manages to land, Japan will become the fifth country in the world to reach the surface of the moon, after the Soviet Union/Russia (1966) – Luna 9, the United States (1969 – Apollo XI), China (2013 – Chang’e 3) and most recently India (2023 – Chandrayaan-3). At present, for strategic reasons, the South Pole (on the far side) has become the most desired target, but as the Japanese mission pursues a different target, JAXA has chosen a complex site, but relatively far from the South Pole. Of course, the Japanese agency already has a mission planned for this destination in 2025.

More information: JAXA