Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said that the landing on the moon was planned as part of a large-scale program of joint activities in the region and on the satellite with the United States, according to the national portal Adyrna.
In December, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) began accepting applications for participation in a new batch of astronauts involved in the implementation of these plans, according to TASS. The competition will last until March 4 next year.
The JAXA astronaut corps already has seven members, with an average age of 52. By 2030, when the moon is expected to be actively studied, only two of them will remain in the ranks, and the rest will have to retire.
In the spring of 2019, the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced a draft program to study and explore the Moon Artemis. In the third stage, it was planned to land the astronauts on the satellite by the end of 2020.
Tokyo has announced its decision to join the American Moon program in 2019. Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and NASA have signed an agreement on cooperation in the field of natural satellite exploration. They talked about the delivery of equipment, the exchange of data on the lunar surface, the joint development of a rover to the moon, as well as the possibility of sending Japanese astronauts to the moon.
National portal "Adyrna"
