Science & Technology

Bad weather cancels Japan’s new lunar probe, X-ray satellite launch

Tokyo, Aug 28 (EFE).- Japan canceled Monday the launch of a space rocket containing the SLIM lunar probe, which would have marked the first moon landing for the Japanese, as well as a new X-ray space observation satellite, called XRISM due to bad weather conditions.

The number 47 H2A rocket, operated by the company Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, could not take off Monday morning from the Space Center on the island of Tanegashima, in the southwest of the Japanese archipelago, due to inclement weather, according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

The liquid fuel H2A rocket measures 53 meters long and has a diameter of four meters and carries this lunar probe that would also seek to show precision landing technology and investigate lunar rocks.

If it manages to land on the moon, Japan will be the fifth country in the world to do so and the data obtained will be used in the American international project Artemis, whose goal is to put astronauts on the moon.

The H2A rocket also carries a new X-ray space observation satellite, called XRISM and developed jointly with NASA, marking a major step forward for Japan’s satellite program.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is also planning to launch its new H3 rocket, jointly developed with the agency, a successor to the H2A, for the first time in the near future.

In February, the H3 was unable to make what would have been its maiden flight after its complementary boosters failed to fire, a failed launch that generated great anticipation due to its importance in the Japanese aerospace program. EFE

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