Japan will be the latest country to aim for the moon this weekend, just days after a Russian spacecraft collided with the lunar surface and India’s Chandrayaan-3 landed near its south pole. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s H2-A rocket is scheduled to take off on Sunday morning from Tanegashima Space Centre in southern Japan, carrying an advanced imaging satellite and a lightweight lander expected to touch down on the moon in January or February. JAXA’s H2-A, the agency’s most reliable rocket with just one failure out of 42 launches since 2001, will be carrying the Small Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM. Standing less than 3 metres tall, the lander could pave the way for other probes with high navigational accuracy. The rocket will also be carrying the X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission, a satellite that will help scientists observe plasma in stars and galaxies.

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