Watch Japan attempt to ace its 1st-ever moon landing on Jan. 19 with this free livestream (video)

By Mike Wall
published about 9 hours ago

The nation's SLIM lunar lander will try to touch down at around 10:20 a.m. ET on Friday (Jan. 19).

Japan's robotic SLIM spacecraft will attempt to pull off the nation's first-ever successful moon landing on Friday morning (Jan. 19), and you can watch the action live.

SLIM (short for "Smart Lander for Investigating Moon" ) is scheduled to begin its touchdown operations Friday at 10 a.m. EST (1500 GMT; midnight on Jan. 20 Japan time), with a soft landing on the moon occurring 20 minutes later, if all goes according to plan.

You can watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or directly via JAXA. Coverage will begin at 9 a.m. EST (1400 GMT; 11 p.m. Japan time).



Artist's illustration of Japan's SLIM lander attempting its lunar touchdown on Jan. 19, 2024. (Image credit: ISAS/JAXA)

SLIM launched atop a Japanese H-2A rocket on Sept. 6 of last year. The moon probe shared that ride with an X-ray space telescope called XRISM, which was deployed into low Earth orbit shortly after launch and recently beamed home its first test photos after a successful checkout period.

More:
https://www.space.com/japan-first-moon-landing-slim-webcast