Japanese “Sniper” conquers the moon

Japan became the fifth country to land a spacecraft on the Moon. Previously, only the US, Russia, China and India had achieved this, with the latter country only a few months ago. This was thanks to the Slim probe (an acronym in English for the Intelligent Lunar Exploration Lander), nicknamed the “Moon Sniper” due to the precision with which it can perform this dangerous maneuver, which on Earth’s satellite results in a failure rate , close to 50.%. .

Landing occurred at 16:20, and we had to wait two hours until representatives of the Japanese Space Agency (Jaxa) announced the success of the mission. But this confirmation came with a but: the panels do not generate electricity, which means the device is running out of energy. They will be back next week to offer more information.

Slim, which measures 2.4 meters tall, 2.7 meters long, 1.7 meters wide and weighs 600 kilograms, was launched into space on September 6 from the Tanegashima Space Center. The preparation phase for the descent began on January 10 and yesterday it reached an altitude of 15 kilometers, after which the final stage of landing on the Moon began. The main purpose of the probe is precisely to demonstrate “that you can land where you want.” To do this, it has technology similar to facial recognition, which allows it to identify lunar craters and land less than 100 meters from the specified target. By comparison, the Apollo XI Eagle module that enabled Neil Armstrong to set foot on the satellite had a range of 20 kilometers long and five kilometers wide around its chosen destination.

The probe travels light from scientific equipment. Shortly before landing on the Moon, he released two small research vehicles: LEV-1 and LEV-2. The first, weighing two kilograms and moving in small jumps, has a camera, a thermometer and a radiation meter. The LEV-2 is a 250-gram sphere, slightly larger than a tennis ball, that can be split in two to create two chambers. It was made by the same toy company that made Transformers.

American failure

Hours before the Japanese landed on the moon, the United States held its breath until it saw the Peregrine spacecraft destroyed over the South Pacific. Astrorobotic confirmed the craft disintegrated in Earth’s atmosphere at 9:50 pm on Thursday, eleven days after launch. The mission aimed to become the first private company to land on the Moon. In its cargo, in addition to scientific instruments, it carried a shoebox-sized car, physical bitcoin, the ashes of more than 70 people and DNA samples from people such as former US presidents George Washington, Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy and a dog.

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