Liftoff a month later succeeded, but the rocket had to be destroyed after its second stage failed to ignite properly. In February, the H3 rocket launch was aborted for a glitch. Japan's space program has been marred by recent failures. A Japanese private company, called ispace, crashed a lander in trying to land on the moon in April. That came just days after Russia failed in its attempt to return to the moon for the first time in nearly a half century. ![]() Last month, India landed a spacecraft near the moon's south pole. Only four nations have successfully landed on the moon, the U.S., Russia, China and India. The move comes at a time when the world is again turning to the challenge of going to the moon. That allows the box-shaped gadgetry to find a safer place to land. While landings now tend to be off by about 10 kilometers (6 miles) or more, the Smart Lander is designed to be more precise, within about 100 meters (330 feet) of the intended target, JAXA official Shinichiro Sakai told reporters ahead of the launch. JAXA is developing "pinpoint landing technology" to prepare for future lunar probes and landing on other planets. The Smart Lander won't make lunar orbit for three or four months after the launch and would likely attempt a landing early next year, according to the space agency. "Understanding the distribution of this hot plasma in space and time, as well as its dynamical motion, will shed light on diverse phenomena such as black holes, the evolution of chemical elements in the universe and the formation of galactic clusters," Alexander said.Īlso aboard the latest Japanese rocket is the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, a lightweight lunar lander. Plasmas have the potential to be used in various ways, including healing wounds, making computer chips and cleaning the environment. In cooperation with NASA, JAXA will look at the strength of light at different wavelengths, the temperature of things in space and their shapes and brightness.ĭavid Alexander, director of the Rice Space Institute at Rice University, believes the mission is significant for delivering insight into the properties of hot plasma, or the superheated matter that makes up much of the universe. That information helps in studying how celestial objects were formed, and hopefully can lead to solving the mystery of how the universe was created, JAXA says. The rocket will put into orbit around Earth a satellite called the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission, or XRISM, which will measure the speed and makeup of what lies between galaxies. ![]() The information you need to know, sent directly to you: Download the CTV News App."We have a liftoff," the narrator at JAXA said as the rocket flew up in a burst of smoke and flew over the Pacific. The launch of the HII-A rocket from Tanegashima Space Center in southwestern Japan was shown on live video by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, known as JAXA. Japan launched a rocket Thursday carrying an X-ray telescope that will explore the origins of the universe as well as a small lunar lander.
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