Japan’s SLIM lander has sparked a new era of precision landings, with big implications for lunar science and exploration
Japan recommends one Moon mission be scrappedNature - the world's best science and medicine on your desktopdoi:10.1038/news070115-6Nicola JonesNature
Japan has become the fifth country to land a craft on the moon, but problems with its solar panels mean the mission hangs in the balance. Dubbed the "moon sniper", the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) probe was attempting a risky landing on a slope at the rim of a crater ...
Japan is moving ahead with plans to land a spacecraft on Phobos, one of Mars’ moons. If successful, the mission would mark the first time any country has touched down on the surface of the Martian moon and potentially the first round-trip mission to the Mars system. Japan’s space agen...
Japan is the fifth nation to land on the moon,following the former Soviet Union,theUnited States, China, and India. But JAXA controllers soon realized after the landing that their mission was in peril, with the spacecraft quickly losing battery life. ...
A Japanese spacecraft touted to be the largest aimed at the moon since NASA's Apollo era rocketed into space late Thursday on an ambitious mission to study the origins of Earth's nearest neighbor. The three-ton Kaguya lunar orbiter rode its H-2A rocket moonward at about 9:31 p.m. EDT...
Japan’s space agency (JAXA) is gearing up for itsMartian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission,with plans to have a sample fromMars’ moon Phobos return to Earth by 2029. Mission scientists say they hope to find clues to the origins of Mars two moons, as well as Mars itself, and possibly ...
Japan has announced that it is getting ready to launch its first unmanned mission to the Moon in 2018, which would make it the fourth nation to land on Earth’s satellite and help pave the way for manned missions in the future.
“Particularly convenient for the Martian Moons eXploration mission, which will target Phobos for sample return, is that the moon’s close orbit to Mars means that excavated Martian material can reach Phobos without a strong shocked excavation event, which would melt the material,” Hyodo explains...
Update for 8:05 p.m. ET on Aug. 27:Due to inclement weather, JAXA has scrubbed the planned Aug. 27 launch of the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) mission that is also carrying the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM). A new time has not yet been announced, but...