麻豆约拍

Japan is set to make the latest attempt at a soft touch-down on the Moon.

Its Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) mission will aim for a gentle slope, close to an equatorial crater called Shioli.

The bid follows the failure this month of a private American company to reach the lunar surface.

Statistically, it has proven very difficult to land on Earth's natural satellite safely. Only about a half of all attempts have succeeded. If it all goes to plan, Slim will make Japan the fifth country ever to land on the moon.

Japan's space agency hopes the precision navigation technologies built into Slim will stack the odds in its favour. Those technologies are behind the mission's nickname of "Moon Sniper".

Phil Parker is a journalist who covered the Nasa Apollo moon landings. He thinks Slim has an 鈥�80% chance of landing鈥�. He told Newsday that Japan was trying to 鈥渁chieve very accurate landings not just on the moon but on future missions to Mars as well, which is totally different to what we saw in the 60s and 70s and even with the lunar probes that America and China are launching. Most of these target for spots on the Moon that cover about 10 or 20km in diameter but the Slim spacecraft is looking for a landing area no bigger than 100m in diameter.鈥�

He adds missions to the Moon have become more frequent because: 鈥淲ater does seem to occur within the minerals, within the rocks that have been retained from the Moon, which means that setting up bases for human beings would be more than feasible.鈥�

(Picture: Shows the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) flight model, which Japan hopes to land on the moon. Credit: JAXA handout via EPA.)

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