Japan launch a spacecraft on Thursday with an X-ray telescope which will investigate the origins of the universe, as well as a lunar lander.
Japan launches H-IIA “moon sniper” to test precision landing Credit video: Global News
Launching of the H-IIA rocket from Tanegashima Space Center in southwestern Japan was filmed live on video broadcast by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, called JAXA.
“We have a liftoff,” the voice of the narrator from JAXA stated as the rocket took off with a blaze of smoke, then flew across the Pacific.
Thirteen minutes after flight, the spacecraft slid in orbit about Earth an orbiting satellite known as”XRISM.” X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission, also known as XRISM that will determine the speed and structure of galaxies.
The information can be used to study the process by which celestial objects formed and may help in figuring out the mystery of the origins of the universe, JAXA says.
In collaboration in collaboration with NASA, JAXA will look at the intensity of light in different wavelengths, as well as the temperature of space objects and their shape and the brightness.
David Alexander, director of the Rice Space Institute at Rice University believes that the mission is important to provide insights into the characteristics of hot plasma or Superheated Matter that composes most part of our universe.
Plasmas could be utilized in a variety of ways, such as the healing of wounds, the creation of computers and chips, as well as cleaning up the surroundings.
“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 added.
Onboard the latest Japanese launch will be an Smart Lander for Investigating Moon or SLIM which is a light lunar lander. It’s Smart Lander won’t make lunar orbit until three or four months following the launch and will likely try to land in the first quarter of next year, as per Space Agency.
JAXA is currently developing “pinpoint landing technology” to prepare for lunar probes to come and landings in other worlds. Although landings currently are generally off by 10 kilometers (6 miles) or more but the Smart Lander is designed to be more precise and within 100m (330 feet) of the goal, JAXA official Shinichiro Sakai spoke to reporters prior to the launch.
The box-shaped technology is able to find a more secure area to be.
This move is coming just as the world is considering the prospect of attempting to reach the moon. Four countries have succeeded in made it to the moon including The U.S., Russia, China and India.
In the month of March, India landed a spacecraft near the south pole of the moon. It happened just days after Russia did not succeed in its mission to visit Moon for the very first time after more than fifty years. A Japanese private company, dubbed Ispace, smashed into a lunar lander as it attempted to land on Moon in April.
The Japanese space program has been affected by recent malfunctions. In February the launch of the H3 rocket was aborted due to an error. Liftoff was successful a month later but the rocket needed to be destroyed because its second stage failed fully ignite.
Japan has begun to recruit astronauts to the moon for the first time after the past 13 years, and has made clear its plans to send the first Japanese on the moon.
The moon’s orbit has been a fascination for mankind for many years. As part of the U.S. Apollo program, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made their first moonwalk in 1969.
Last NASA astronaut mission on the moon took place in 1972. After that, the mission of sending astronauts to the moon seemed to be fading as missions were delegated to robots.
