Japan launches moon lander and X-ray observatory Japan sent a new X-ray space telescope into low Earth orbit and a first, small lunar lander on its way to the moon with a single launch late Wednesday.
And don’t forget the Japanese Hakuto-R crashing last December. And we’ll start finding out soon if the new batch of American CLPS landers will work.
As far as why - I have no idea why there are so many all of the sudden. For some reason the US and China are working on crewed moon landing programs and making a platoon of non-crewed landers to go with them. And for some reason Japan, India, and Israel all want in? And Russia wants to try to be relevant? I don’t get why, or why now, but at least it’s exciting.
At least to some extend it is a subsidy program to prop up or maintain a national launch fleet against stiff commercial competition (SpaceX) and to renew the local expertise to keep the ageing fleet of ICBMs going. The moon was and is a convenient excuse to waste tax money on this. Japan is one of the cases of ramping up a thinly veiled threat of nuke delivery capacity without officially saying so.
And don’t forget the Japanese Hakuto-R crashing last December. And we’ll start finding out soon if the new batch of American CLPS landers will work.
As far as why - I have no idea why there are so many all of the sudden. For some reason the US and China are working on crewed moon landing programs and making a platoon of non-crewed landers to go with them. And for some reason Japan, India, and Israel all want in? And Russia wants to try to be relevant? I don’t get why, or why now, but at least it’s exciting.
At least to some extend it is a subsidy program to prop up or maintain a national launch fleet against stiff commercial competition (SpaceX) and to renew the local expertise to keep the ageing fleet of ICBMs going. The moon was and is a convenient excuse to waste tax money on this. Japan is one of the cases of ramping up a thinly veiled threat of nuke delivery capacity without officially saying so.