Editorial: Japan’s first lunar landing to showcase its tech prowess
September 16 , 2023
Earlier this month, the H2 rocket lifted into orbit the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM. Both the launcher and payload were made in Japan and managed by the domestic space agency, JAXA, with SLIM being the nation’s first bid to land a probe on the lunar surface.SLIM debuts at a time when governments and private enterprises around the world are actively working to explore the Moon, effectively expanding humanity’s physical frontiers. Obviously, the hurdles standing before these endeavors are daunting: In April of this year, a Japanese startup attempted a lunar landing, but crashed; in August, a Russian lunar lander also failed.
SLIM’s rendezvous with the Moon is expected to take place in January or February 2024. If successful, Japan will join an exclusive club led only by the US, the former Soviet Union, China and India.
SLIM aims to demonstrate proprietary technology to make a precision landing. Once in lunar orbit, the Japanese lander’s onboard camera will take photographs of the surface, matching them with a digital map of the Moon to touch down within 100 meters of the target area. Such accuracy is superior by at least a factor of ten compared to other landings in the past, making it feasible to land wherever desired rather than wherever possible.
All this leads to Artemis, an international project led by the US space agency NASA in which JAXA is a partner and designed to establish a long-term manned presence on the Moon. Water is paramount in sustaining Artemis and follow-on facilities, providing inhabitants with drinking and bathing water as well as oxygen to breathe. SLIM’s tech makes it possible to construct bases very close to suspected sites of subsurface lunar water.
And from there, new vistas will open for humankind, from the gradual colonization of the Moon itself on to future manned missions to Mars and beyond.
