Japan’s lunar mission launched on Thursday, the country’s new attempt to join a select group of countries that have successfully landed a vehicle on the Moon, a technological feat India accomplished last month.

After three delays since late August due to unfavorable weather, Japan’s space agency Jaxa’s H-IIA rocket lifted off as scheduled at 08:42 Japanese time (Wednesday 23:42 GMT) from the Jaxa launch base in Tanegashima on Thursday. (southwestern Japan), on the shores of the Pacific Ocean.

The rocket in particular carries a small lunar module called SLIM (Intelligent Lander for Moon Investigation) and nicknamed “Moon Sniper”, which is supposed to land within four to six months on the Moon with great precision, a maximum of 100 meters from its target. usually against a few kilometers.

About 47 minutes after liftoff, the separation of the SLIM from the rest of the rocket was successfully completed, prompting an explosion of joy and applause in the Jaxa control center, according to live footage broadcast on YouTube.

For mobile exploration robots, “navigating steep slopes and uneven terrain still represents a high degree of difficulty. This is why it is important to successfully land (spacecraft, editorial note) with high precision to enable efficient exploration in the future,” he explained. Jaxa on her site.

In addition, the region suitable for exploring the Moon’s polar regions is “limited to a very small area”, said Jaxa.

If the landing is successful, SLIM will also have to perform, using a multispectral camera, an analysis of the suspected rock composition of the lunar mantle, the internal structure of the Moon which is still poorly understood.

XRISM, an astronomy satellite co-developed by Jaxa, American NASA and the European Space Agency for X-ray imaging and spectroscopy missions, has also been carried aboard the H-IIA rocket. Separation of it from the launcher 14 minutes after takeoff was also successful.

La Jaxa wants to “cool down”

In a sign of the enthusiasm generated by Japan’s dual mission, the rocket liftoff was followed live by more than 35,000 people Thursday on YouTube.

The global race to explore the Moon is heating up: India successfully landed a spacecraft there for the first time in August, with a mobile robot transmitting images and scientific data from the surface of the moon’s south pole.

Prior to India, only the United States, Soviet Union, and China had successfully carried out controlled moon landings. Russia has just failed in its new attempt, its Luna-25 space probe having crashed on the lunar soil last month.

Japan had attempted in November to land a mini probe on the Moon, aboard the American mission Artemis 1.

However, communication with the probe was lost shortly after it was launched into space due to battery failure.

And in April of this year, a young private Japanese company, ispace, failed to land its lunar module which possibly crashed on the surface of Earth’s natural satellite.

La Jaxa has had several setbacks with other pitchers since last year.

In October, the small Epsilon-6 rocket failed its mission shortly after liftoff, and Jaxa’s next-generation large H3 rocket then suffered two successive failures in early 2023.

This ambitious model, intended to be a successor to the H-IIA model, was not successful in its first mission and the date of its new attempt is unknown.

So given all the recent disappointment, Jaxa president Hiroshi Yamakawa on Thursday declared himself “overjoyed” by the successful launch of the SLIM/XRISM mission.

Jaxa “will continue to take action” to ensure the reliability of the H3 and Epsilon models, Mr. Yamakawa. “We will unite to restore confidence in Japan’s rocket technology.”