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House of Representatives even threatened to cancel the craft. More than a decade has passed since the telescope was first expected to launch, a delay accompanied by an escalating price tag that soared roughly $9 billion above budget. The Christmas gift to the world will ditch its box and open up slowly on its own during a multi-step, month-long journey to its orbit in outer space. ET the James Webb Space Telescope, a scientific gift folded up and wrapped in a rocket, took off from its launch site in the South American country of French Guiana. The last NASA human mission to the moon was in 1972, and the focus on sending humans to the moon appeared to wane, with missions being relegated to robots.In an incremental sign the universe rewards the diligent behavior and patience of astronomers out to study it, conditions cleared enough this Christmas morning for the launch of the biggest, most powerful and most expensive telescope ever. Apollo program, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon in 1969. Going to the moon has fascinated humankind for decades. Japan has started recruiting astronaut candidates for the first time in 13 years, making clear its ambitions to send a Japanese to the moon.

Liftoff a month later succeeded, but the rocket had to be destroyed after its second stage failed to ignite properly. In February, the H3 rocket launch was aborted for a glitch. Japan's space program has been marred by recent failures. A Japanese private company, called ispace, crashed a lander in trying to land on the moon in April. That came just days after Russia failed in its attempt to return to the moon for the first time in nearly a half century. Last month, India landed a spacecraft near the moon's south pole. Only four nations have successfully landed on the moon, the U.S., Russia, China and India. The move comes at a time when the world is again turning to the challenge of going to the moon. That allows the box-shaped gadgetry to find a safer place to land. While landings now tend to be off by about 10 kilometers (6 miles) or more, the Smart Lander is designed to be more precise, within about 100 meters (330 feet) of the intended target, JAXA official Shinichiro Sakai told reporters ahead of the launch. JAXA is developing "pinpoint landing technology" to prepare for future lunar probes and landing on other planets. JAXA workers applauded and bowed with each other from their observation facility. The lander successfully separated from the rocket about 45 minutes after the launch and proceeded on its proper track to eventually land on the moon. The Smart Lander won't make lunar orbit for three or four months after the launch and would likely attempt a landing early next year, according to the space agency. "Understanding the distribution of this hot plasma in space and time, as well as its dynamical motion, will shed light on diverse phenomena such as black holes, the evolution of chemical elements in the universe and the formation of galactic clusters," Alexander said.Īlso aboard the latest Japanese rocket is the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, a lightweight lunar lander. Plasmas have the potential to be used in various ways, including healing wounds, making computer chips and cleaning the environment.

In cooperation with NASA, JAXA will look at the strength of light at different wavelengths, the temperature of things in space and their shapes and brightness.ĭavid Alexander, director of the Rice Space Institute at Rice University, believes the mission is significant for delivering insight into the properties of hot plasma, or the superheated matter that makes up much of the universe. That information helps in studying how celestial objects were formed, and hopefully can lead to solving the mystery of how the universe was created, JAXA says.

Short Wave India and Russia: A tale of two lunar landing attempts