Japan aims SLIM lander soft landing on moon 20th January 2024 full details

The Moon mission of Japan’s space agency ‘Jaxa’ will try to land on the Moon this Saturday, January 20. If everything goes according to plan, Japan will become the fifth country to land on the Moon. On September 7 last year, Japan had launched the SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) spacecraft on mission. The ‘slim’ lander will attempt a soft landing on the lunar surface at 8:50 pm Indian time.

ISRO reached the moon in 40 days, Japan took 4 months

Indian space agency ISRO took 40 days to reach the moon. Then it was said that we are slower than countries like America and Russia. But the Japanese mission is going to try to land on the Moon about 4 months after launch.

(SLIM Moon landing: live broadcast Jan. 19, 2024 from 23:00 JST)
A live broadcast during the moon landing operations for the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) and press conference will be streamed live on the#JAXA YouTube channel #SLIMlivehttps://t.co/5TR5BIS7JW

— JAXA(Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) (@JAXA_en) January 15, 2024

The main reason for this is that the SLIM spacecraft that Japan used to reach the moon is a long way. This has reduced fuel consumption. Japan’s spacecraft has been circling the moon for about a month in a journey of 4 months.

Where will Japan’s spacecraft land?

Japan’s mission will try to land in Shioli Crater on the moon. The objective of the Japanese Space Agency is to achieve a precise landing at the designated location and make the mission successful as a probe. If SLIM lander is compared with India’s Vikram lander, it is much less in weight. The SLIM lander weighs approximately 200 kg, while the Vikram lander weighed 1750 kg. In September last year, JAXA had launched the Slim Spacecraft (SLIM) for the purpose of soft landing on the Moon. The spacecraft was sent aboard a rocket named H-2A.

So far, four countries have been able to successfully land on the Moon, which include America, Russia, China and India.