Space: After the Indian success, Japan is attempting a lunar mission again

A Japanese rocket carrying a small module is set to take off on Monday to land on the moon in four to six months, in a new attempt after unsuccessful Japanese tests, while India has just succeeded in its first moon landing.

The launch was initially scheduled for Saturday, then was postponed to Sunday and now to Monday due to bad weather expected this weekend at the Japan Aerospace Agency (JAXA) launch site in Tanegashima (southwest of the country). .

The project consists in particular of testing a high-precision lunar landing technique, at a maximum distance of 100 meters from its target as opposed to usually several kilometers, with a small and light probe (700-730 kg).

Hence the name of this module, SLIM (Smart Landing Vehicle for Lunar Exploration), and its nickname “moon sniper“.

For mobile crawlers,Traversing steep slopes and uneven terrain remains a high level of difficulty. This is why it is important to successfully land (spacecraft, editor’s note) with high precision to allow effective exploration in the future.JAXA explained on its website.

In addition to areas suitable for exploring the polar regions of the moon.Limited to a very small areaJaxa was still teasing.