TOKYO: Japan’s space agency announced this week that the country would put an unmanned rover on the surface of the moon by 2018, joining an elite club of nations who have explored Earth’s satellite.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), divulged the plan to an expert panel, including members of the cabinet and the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry on Monday.
“This is an initial step and a lot of procedures are still ahead before the plan is formally approved,” a JAXA spokesperson told reporters.
If it is approved, the agency will reportedly use its Epsilon solid-fuel rocket technology to carry and deploy a SLIM probe — the acronym stands for “Smart Lander for Investigating the Moon” — on the surface of the celestial body.
Japanese media estimates that the mission will cost between 10 billion to 15 billion yen ($83.4 million to $125 million). JAXA spokesperson Chihito Onda confirmed to CNN that this estimate is realistic.
The mission is expected to be used to perfect soft-landing technologies, which could be used in manned expeditions to the moon or Mars. The lander will use face recognition software found in digital cameras, which will be repurposed to enable the craft to recognize craters on the surface, Onda said.
The move could be seen as Japan’s attempt to play catchup to its Asian neighbors China and India, which have both notched significant extraterrestrial victories in recent years — China’s Yutu lunar rover outlasted expectations and India successfully put a probe into orbit around Mars.
