Context: Japan’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) spacecraft, whose success or failure will affect the upcoming Chandrayaan-4 Mission. 

• Japan’s Moon Landing Mission SLIM will mark the second Japanese attempt this year to soft-land on the moon: 
  • A Japanese HAKUTO-R M1 lander crashed in late April 2023 after its engines shut down too soon during the landing.

SLIM: Japan’s Moon Landing Mission

• SLIM is a small-scale exploration lander designed for pinpoint landings on the Moon’s surface.
• It will test the effectiveness of reduction in the size and weight of equipment used in Moon landings, and investigation into the Moon’s origins Weighed 590 kg at launch.
• It has been built and launched by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) on September 7, 2023
• SLIM was launched together with XRISM, a next-generation X-ray space telescope, onboard an H-2A rocket.

How the Japan’s Moon Landing Mission will impact the Chandrayaan-4: 

• The findings of the Japan’s Moon Landing Mission “SLIM”, will help guide the trajectory and technology behind the Chandrayaan-4. 
• If the low-weight mission proves successful, India can adopt these technologies through partnership with JAXA. 

Chandrayaan-4: 

• Objective: The Chandrayaan-4 spacecraft will travel to the moon, land, collect samples, and then connect to another module in space. The module will then return to Earth orbit. 
  • As the two modules approach Earth, they will separate, with one part returning to Earth and the other will keep orbiting the planet.
• Chandrayaan-4 plans to land a much heavier 350 kg rover on the moon. 
  • In comparison, the Chandrayaan-3 rover weighed only 30kg.
• The mission aims to perform a challenging landing on the moon’s rim, an unexplored region. 
  • The rover will also explore a larger area, measuring 1000m x 1000m, compared to Chandrayaan-3’s 500m x 500m.
• LUPEX will be an Indian-Japan joint enterprise (however, while JAXA has approved LUPEX, India is yet to) with the earliest launch date in 2026. 
  • The Lunar Polar Exploration Mission (LUPEX) is a joint mission of the Indian and Japanese space agencies to explore the moon’s Polar region.
  • The technologies JAXA will test with SLIM, like a feature-matching algorithm and navigation systems, will be crucial for this aspect of LUPEX.
  • It will explore an area closer to the moon’s south pole than Chandrayaan 3 did

Continue Reading: ISRO To Launch Chandrayaan 4 Mission 

Source: The Hindu