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Earlier this year, Japan made history, but not for the reason you may think. Yes, it landed a spacecraft on the moon for the first time, joining the ranks of the USA, Russia, India and China, who came before them. But JAXA's mission was much more than that. They achieved such a precise landing on the moon, it would be the equivalent of successfully shooting a skin cell from London to Cairo,
and having it land on a specific grain of rice. In the run up to the launch, it was this insane ambition of precision engineering that had everybody talking. Once JAXA touched down, the headlines back on Earth shifted. Nicknamed Moonsniper for its stealthy precision, its whole mission was mainly to demonstrate how precise of a landing we can now pull off.
As such, the tiny spacecraft was not meant to survive the extreme conditions of a lunar night, and yet, somehow it has survived three. Baffling scientists, this resilient craft kept waking up and sending back data and images from the lunar surface. Oh, and it's also upside down. I'm Alex McColgan and you're watching Astrum.
Join me today on this topsy-turvy ride as we dive into the details of JAXA's first moon landing, what has kept the MoonSniper functional through three lunar nights, and how much pinpoint landings will change the future of lunar exploration. The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, also known as SLIM or Moonsniper, is a small, lightweight spacecraft about the size of a passenger vehicle.
Its mission is to analyze the composition of olivine rocks near the Scioli crater, some 200 miles south of the Sea of Tranquility, where Neil Armstrong took his famous small step. This landing zone stands on ground ejected by the nearby crater, giving researchers a chance to study lunar rock without having to drill.
By analyzing the rocks there, JAXA hopes to learn more about the moon's origins, interior, and formation. SLIM also carried two tiny lunar excursion vehicles, LEV-1 and LEV-2. They were designed to deploy from SLIM and gather some of their own data and photos. Beyond its scientific aims, SLIM is also a showcase of the latest in engineering and mission operations.
It aimed to demonstrate how a small explorer could execute accurate lunar landing techniques. This would accelerate the study of the Moon and other planets by using a lighter, more precise exploration system, able to land in treacherous, rocky terrain too difficult for larger crafts. To understand why this is a big deal, it helps to have some historical context.
The first thing you have to know is that only about 43% of lunar landings are successful. Past lunar missions faced huge limitations in landing accuracy, mainly constrained by technology and the lunar environment. For example, it took the Soviet Union a dozen attempts before they finally landed Luna 9 on the moon. Similarly, NASA's Ranger series took six tries before achieving success.
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