United States (US) and Japan Set Sights on Moon, Plan Joint Mission with First Non-American Landing
Japan will develop the rover for US-led moon mission in which 2 Japanese nationals are to be part of
Japanese Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida is on his first-ever official visit to the US by a Japanese PM after 9 years during which NASA administrator Bill Nelson and Japan’s Minister of Education, Science and Technology signed an agreement on April 9, Tuesday at NASA Headquarters in Washington to advance sustainable human exploration of the Moon. Japan will design, develop and operate a pressurized rover for crewed and uncrewed exploration on the moon.
NASA will provide the launch and delivery of the rover to the moon. on Wednesday, US President Biden and Japanese PM Kishida announced a Joint NASA lunar mission for a Japanese national to be the first non-American astronaut to land on the moon on a future Artemis mission.
Biden and Kishida announced to strengthen the science and education ties between their countries, during the meeting at the White House. Biden said, “Those ties stretch up to the moon, where two Japanese astronauts will join future American missions, and one will become the first non-American ever to land on the moon”.
Artemis 3, targeted for launch in 2026, will be the first crewed lunar landing mission of NASA’s Artemis program. 4 astronauts will fly in the Orion spacecraft, out of which only two will land on the south pole of the moon using the starship HLS lander. they will spend about a week on the lunar surface, conducting scientific research including searching for water and ice. The last human exploration mission to the moon was Apollo 17, in 1972. 12 people have walked on the moon so far, all of them were Americans.
The Prime Minister of Japan, Fumio Kishida is on an Official Visit to the US to attend the first trilateral U.S.-Japan-Philippines leaders’ summit. The summit efforts to strengthen the United States’ political, security, economic and people-to-people ties with Japan as well as highlight the deepening trilateral cooperation between the United States, Japan, and the Philippines.
