7.12.2023
Japan targeting Jan. 19 for nation's 1st-ever moon landing
The SLIM lunar lander aims to make history next month.
Artist's illustration of Japan's SLIM lander attempting its lunar touchdown, a milestone that won't occur for several more months. (Image credit: ISAS/JAXA)
Japan will make moon-exploration history in the middle of next month, if all goes to plan.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced today (Dec. 5) that it's targeting Jan. 19 for the lunar landing of its robotic SLIM ("Smart Lander for Investigating Moon") spacecraft.
The newly revealed plan calls for SLIM to begin its descent toward the moon on Jan. 19 around 10 a.m. EST (1500 GMT; 12 a.m. on Jan. 20 Japanese Standard Time). Touchdown — which would mark the first-ever soft lunar landing for a Japanese spacecraft — is scheduled to occur about 20 minutes later.
The 8.8-foot-long (2.7 meters) SLIM probe launched atop a Japanese H-2A rocketalong with an X-ray space telescope called XRISM on Sept. 6. XRISM deployed into low Earth orbit, but SLIM began making its circuitous, fuel-efficient way to the moon.
If all goes smoothly, SLIM will enter lunar orbit on Christmas Day, then spend nearly a month prepping for its technology-demonstrating touchdown attempt. Success would make Japan just the fifth nation to put a probe down on the moon, after the Soviet Union, the United States, China and India. This landing could also open doors for even more ambitious exploration feats down the road.
"SLIM aims to achieve a pinpoint landing with an accuracy of less than 100 meters [330 feet]," JAXA officials wrote in an update today.
"This marks an unprecedentedly high-precision landing on a gravitational body such as the moon, and the results are anticipated to contribute to the programs such as international space exploration that are currently under study," they added.
SLIM also totes two miniprobes, both of which will deploy onto the lunar surface after landing. The duo will photograph the touchdown site, help the SLIM team monitor the mothership's status and provide an "independent communication system for direct communication with Earth," according to JAXA's mission press kit.
SLIM's lunar landing try won't be the first for a Japanese spacecraft; a private probe had a go earlier this year.
That spacecraft — the Hakuto-R lander, built by Tokyo-based company ispace — successfully reached lunar orbit but crashed during its touchdown attemptafter getting confused by the rim of a moon crater.
Quelle: SC
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Update: 8.12.2023
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Three robotic missions target Moon landings over one week in January
Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander in the clean room at Astrotech in Titusville, Florida. The spacecraft will be the main payload onboard the first launch of ULA’s Vulcan rocket. Image: ULA
In a blend of interesting circumstances and happenstance, two private companies and Japan’s space agency are all poised to land on the Moon in the back half of January 2024.
The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines are all exercising distinct launch and landing options to reach the lunar surface. But all three have announced timelines that would see them land on the Moon within days of each other, if everything stays on track at this point.
While avoiding further timeline slipping is far from a certainty, Earth’s satellite could see its busiest month ever in terms of new spacecraft arriving.
As it happens, the last lander scheduled to launch could be the first to touch down on the Moon. Intuitive Machine’s Nova-C lander is targeting liftoff between Jan. 12-16 and is set to land at the Moon’s South Pole (80.297°S, 1.2613°E) on either Jan. 19 or 21.
A spokesperson for Intuitive Machines said the landing opportunity for both days is in the afternoon in EST.
Trent Martin, the Vice President of Lunar Access at Intuitive Machines, told Spaceflight Now in an Oct. 27 interview that they have instantaneous launch opportunities each day during their January window. He said because their lander needs to be fueled at the launch pad, crews will perform a wet dress rehearsal several days ahead of launch.
“We will do a full fuel of our vehicle to ensure that we have the timeline down because we do a late fueling at the pad. We fuel with liquid oxygen and liquid methane, and we want to fuel as late as possible,” Martin said. “SpaceX has been very accommodating and they’re providing us a service that gives us liquid oxygen, liquid methane. They’ll fill up until the very last minute so that we’re as full as possible, so that we have the highest chance of success at landing on the Moon.”
This mission along with the Peregrine lander will mark the first two fulfilled contracts under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.
Onboard the Nova-C lander for NASA are the following:
- Navigation Doppler Lidar (NDL)
- Lunar Node-1 (LN-1)
- Lunar Retroreflector Assembly (LRA)
- Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume Surface Studies (SCALPSS)
- Radio wave Observations at Lunar Surface of photo Electron Sheath (ROLSES)
This mission also features a CubeSat payload called EagleCam from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, which will be launched from the lander when it’s about 30 meters above the surface.
“The camera itself is actually multiple cameras, four cameras. So as this 1U CubeSat tumbles, it’s taking video imagery as it falls to the surface. And so from that, within a day or two, we’ll have video of us landing on the Moon,” Martin said. “So, I’m super excited about that one because that will be the first time that anyone’s ever actually recorded themselves landing on another planetary body.”
Intuitive Machines announced on Monday that its Nova-C lander for the IM-1 mission arrived at the Cape in Florida ahead of its launch next month.
Double landing possibility
JAXA’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) is spending the longest in space, having launched back on Sept. 7, but depending on the timing of the IM-1 landing, it could touch down on the same day from a Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) standpoint.
According to a statement from JAXA on Tuesday, SLIM is set to begin its descent to the lunar surface at 12:00 a.m. JST on Jan. 20 (1500 UTC on Jan. 19) and touchdown at 12:20 a.m. JST (1520 UTC).
The next big milestone in SLIM’s journey is coming up on Dec. 25 when it enters into lunar orbit. JAXA stated that the 200kg dry mass (700kg wet mass) lander will achieve a “full” degree of success if it is able to land within a 100-square-meter target using its “vision-based navigation” system.
The target landing site for SLIM is the SHIOLI crater near the “Sea of Nectar,” located at 13.3°S, 25.2°E. The lander is designed to operate until lunar sunset occurs.
Its payloads include the Multi-Band Spectral Camera (MBC), which will examine the composition of surrounding rocks, and a small probe called the Lunar Excursion Vehicle 2 (LEV-2), “which separates from the main spacecraft just before landing and performs photo imaging.”
“To satisfy the limited size of the vehicle to be [mounted] on SLIM, we had to downsize LEV-2. However, downsizing causes a decrease in running performance,” said Hirano Daichi, one of the researchers involved with LEV-2, in a statement. “In order to deal with this problem, we designed the vehicle to be a spherical object with expandable wheels and a stabilizer using the transforming technologies for toys.”
“Moreover, we adopted the robust and safe design technology for children’s toys, which reduced the number of components used in the vehicle as much as possible and increased its reliability,” he added.
Peregrine takes flight soon
The next lander to launch and the last one scheduled to land in January is Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander. Liftoff aboard a United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket is set for 1:49 a.m. EST (0649 UTC) on Dec. 24. If needed, there are backup opportunities at 1:53 a.m. EST (0653 UTC) on Dec. 25 and 2:08 a.m. EST (0708 UTC) on Dec. 26.
The mission will launch the lander on a translunar injection.
“We will be close to Earth, but on a trajectory that will more or less intersect with the Moon’s orbit. It’s at that point, and this is within about an hour or so of launch, we’re going to separate from the launch vehicle and our lander and Astrobotic’s mission begins,” said John Thornton, Astrobotic CEO, during a media teleconference on Nov. 29.
According to a Nov. 14 presentation by Dr. Joel Kearns, NASA Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration, the landing window for the Peregrine Mission-1 landing is at 3:30 a.m. EST (0830 am UTC) on Jan. 25.
Once they land, Thornton said Peregrine will operate for about 10 days at which point the Sun will set on that part of the Moon, after which he said it will likely become to cold to operate.
“In time, we are developing capability to survive that night, but on these first missions, we’re really focused on the hard enough problem, which is landing on the Moon in the first place,” he said.
As with the IM-1 mission, PM-1 will also host a slate of NASA payloads as a participant in the CLPS program. During the teleconference, Thornton said he mostly only thinks about the other companies trying to land on the Moon when asked about it by press, adding that many players are needed for the lunar economy to be a successful venture.
“We need this industry to succeed. We need the CLPS program to succeed. That is the number one priority for us,” Thornton said. “Of course, there is some level of competition with our competitors, but at the end of the day, it’s really secondary. The most important is the industry and most important is landing success.”
An illustration of the mission path for Astrobotic’s Peregrine Mission-1. Graphic: NASA
Quelle: SN
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Update: 26.12.2023
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Japan’s SLIM successfully enters lunar orbit, gears up for precision moon landing
HELSINKI — Japan’s SLIM robotic spacecraft entered lunar orbit Dec. 25, setting up a moon landing attempt scheduled for Jan. 19.
SLIM completed a roughly three-minute-long lunar orbit insertion burn at 2:51 a.m. Eastern (0751 UTC), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced Christmas Day.
SLIM is now in a 600 x 4,000-kilometer polar lunar orbit, as planned. The spacecraft is currently in a normal condition, JAXA stated. It will soon begin gradually lowering its orbit in preparation for landing.
The landing attempt is scheduled to begin at 10:00 a.m. Eastern (1500 UTC) Jan. 19, landing around 20 minutes later. The lander will aim to set down within a 100 meters of its target point on the slope of the mid-latitude Shioli crater.
SLIM launched Sept. 6 on a H-2A rocket from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center along with the XRISM space telescope. SLIM spacecraft entered low Earth orbit and began a series of orbit-raising maneuvers as part of its circuitous voyage to the moon.
It made a translunar injection burn Sept. 30, making a lunar flyby Oct. 4. This set the spacecraft on a long, looping, propellant-saving journey to the moon, leading to lunar orbit insertion on Christmas Day.
SLIM will next gradually lower its apolune, or farthest point from the moon, and enter a circular orbit at an approximately 600-kilometer-altitude in mid-January, according to JAXA.
Perilune will then be lowered, reaching a 15-km-altitude orbit Jan. 19 Japan time, ready for the Jan. 19 landing. SLIM will begin to decelerate from a speed of around 1,700 meters per second at that point.
Five crushable, 3D-printed aluminum lattice landing legs will help the lander absorb the of impact of touch down and settle on the sloped rim of the 300-meters-wide Shioli crater.
A successful SLIM landing would make Japan the fifth country to soft land on the moon. In August India became the fourth nation to achieve the feat with its high latitude Chandrayaan-3 mission landing.
The main objective of SLIM is to demonstrate a highly-accurate lunar soft-landing with a lightweight architecture. It will use a vision-based navigation system and carries observational data from Japan’s SELENE orbiter launched in 2007. This system will be used to identify its landing zone during its autonomous descent and landing. It also carries a laser range finder for the final stages of descent.
Beyond the landing attempt itself, the spacecraft is designed to spend the remainder of the lunar day on the surface conducting experiments. SLIM carries a Multi-Band Camera (MBC) to assess the composition of Shioli crater by analyzing the spectra of sunlight reflected off its surface. Teams are particularly looking for the presence of the mineral olivine, which may have been ejected from beneath the moon’s crust.
SLIM is also carrying a pair of small, innovative rovers. Lunar Excursion Vehicle 1 (LEV-1) uses a hopping mechanism, while LEV-2 is a baseball-sized, spherical rover. Both carry cameras and science payloads.
The mission could lead to lower cost exploration efforts in the future, according to JAXA. The accuracy of landings will be useful for accessing areas of high scientific interest instead of more general, safer landing zones.
The spacecraft has a dry mass of 200 kilograms and 700-730 kg wet mass at launch. The expected development cost was 18 billion yen ($120 million).
Quelle: SN
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Update: 29.12.2023
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Japan's SLIM lander beams moon images home before Jan. 19 landing
Craters fill the view.
The first images of the moon and the lunar surface as seen by Jaxa's SLIM lander (Image credit: JAXA)
After arriving in orbit around the moon on Christmas Day, Japan's Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) moon lander has beamed back its first images of the lunar surface.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) revealed the monochrome but highly detailed images of the crater-pocketed moon surface on its X feed, formerly Twitter.
The images were created after the spacecraft was successfully inserted into lunar orbit at 2:51 a.m. EST (0951 GMT or 4:51 p.m. Japan time) on Monday (Dec. 25).
"SLIM successfully completed main engine injection at 16:51 and successfully entered lunar orbit! Below is an image sent from SLIM near the moon," JAXA officials wrote.
SLIM launched on Sept. 6, along with JAXA's X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM). While XRISM remained in orbit around Earth, conducting its mission to investigate cosmic X-ray sources, SLIM left our planet for an elliptical orbit, circling the moon roughly once every 6.4 hours.
This orbit brings the lander as close to the lunar surface as around 373 miles (600 kilometers), with the spacecraft swinging out as far as 2,485 miles (4,000 km) from the moon.
The 8.8-foot-long (2.7 meters) spacecraft is set to touch down on the moon on Jan. 24. If SLIM's lunar landing is successful, it will make Japan the fifth country after the Soviet Union, the U.S., China, and India to make a lunar landing successfully.
"By creating the SLIM lander, humans will make a qualitative shift towards being able to land where we want and not just where it is easy to land, as had been the case before," the space agency wrote in a mission description. "By achieving this, it will become possible to land on planets even more resource-scarce than the moon."
Japan’s SLIM spacecraft lowers orbit ahead of Friday moon landing attempt
An artist's impression of the JAXA SLIM lunar lander during descent. Credit: JAXA
HELSINKI — Japan’s SLIM moon lander has entered a lower, near-circular lunar orbit ahead of its Jan. 19 landing attempt.
The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) initially entered lunar orbit Dec. 25, following an elongated, 110-day journey to the moon.
The spacecraft completed an orbit-lowering maneuver at 3:32 a.m. Eastern Jan. 14, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced. SLIM’s initial 600 x 4,000-kilometer polar lunar orbit has been lowered into a near circular 600-kilometer orbit. The spacecraft’s navigation camera captured images of the lunar surface during the maneuver.
JAXA also confirmed that preparations for landing and descent are complete. The landing will begin at 10:00 a.m. Eastern (1500 UTC) Jan. 19 (00:00 JST, Jan. 20), with touchdown around 20 minutes later.
Live coverage of the landing attempt will begin around an hour before the start of the landing attempt.
SLIM will lower its perilune, or closest approach to the moon, to 15 kilometers Jan. 19 Japan time in preparation for the landing. The start of the landing process will see SLIM begin to decelerate from a speed of around 1,700 meters per second.
The spacecraft is targeting a landing within a 100 meters of a determined point on the slope of the mid-latitude Shioli crater.
Five crushable, 3D-printed aluminum lattice landing legs will help the lander absorb the impact of touch down and settle on the sloped rim of the 300-meters-wide Shioli crater.
A successful SLIM landing would make Japan the fifth country to soft land on the moon. In August India became the fourth nation to achieve the feat with its high latitude Chandrayaan-3 mission landing.
After landing SLIM will spend the remainder of the lunar day in Shioli crater conducting experiments. SLIM carries a Multi-Band Camera (MBC) to assess the composition of Shioli crater by analyzing the spectra of sunlight reflected off its surface. Teams are particularly looking for the presence of olivine, a mineral which may have been ejected from beneath the moon’s crust.
SLIM is also carrying a pair of small, innovative rovers. Lunar Excursion Vehicle 1 (LEV-1) uses a hopping mechanism, while LEV-2 is a baseball-sized, spherical rover. Both carry cameras and science payloads.
Japan conducted its first launch of the year Jan. 12 (UTC), with a H-2A rocket carrying the IGS-Optical 8 reconnaissance satellite. JAXA and MHI are also preparing for the second launch of the new H3 rocket in mid-February.
SLIM itself launched Sept. 6, 2023, on a H-2A rocket from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center along with the XRISM space telescope, for which NASA and JAXA are currently performing troubleshooting. SLIM initially entered a low Earth orbit and began a series of orbit-raising maneuvers as part of its circuitous voyage to the moon, arriving Dec. 25.
SLIM is one of a number of 2024 lunar landing attempts. U.S. firm Astrobotic’s Peregrine spacecraft, unable to land on the moon because of a propellant leak, is expected to reenter Earth’s atmosphereon Jan. 18.
China is meanwhile gearing up for an unprecedented lunar far side sample return mission around May, while Intuitive Machines is planning up to three landings. The first, IM-1, is scheduled to launch in February.
Quelle: SC
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Update: 19.01.2024
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Japan’s ‘moon sniper’ lander heads for touchdown on lunar surface
If all goes to plan, Jaxa’s lander will make Japan the fifth country ever to land on the moon
Quelle: JAXA