In the future, rocketing in making precision landings on the moon’s craggy, rocky and crater-pocked face won’t be as hard. At least that’s the goal of NASA’s Lunar Retroreflector Array (LRA) program, an initiative that is interfacing with U.S. and foreign lunar lander initiatives. LRA consists of a dome-shaped device, topped by small glass prism retroreflectors. That contrivance is then mounted to a moon lander and delivered to the lunar surface. The LRA can bounce laser light from other orbiting and incoming spacecraft, functioning as a permanent location marker on…
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Japan’s SLIM lander beams moon images home before Jan. 19 landing (photos)
After arriving in orbit around the moon on Christmas Day, Japan’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) moon lander has beamed back its first images of the lunar surface. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) revealed the monochrome but highly detailed images of the crater-pocketed moon surface on its X feed, formerly Twitter. The images were created after the spacecraft was successfully inserted into lunar orbit at 2:51 a.m. EST (0951 GMT or 4:51 p.m. Japan time) on Monday (Dec. 25). Related: Japan’s SLIM ‘moon sniper’ lander arrives in lunar orbit for…
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