Japan is shooting for the moon, literally

​The H-2A rocket launched at Tanagashima Space Center in Minamitane Town, Kagoshima Prefecture, on Sept. 7, 2023.
The H-2A rocket launched at Tanagashima Space Center in Minamitane Town, Kagoshima Prefecture, on Sept. 7, 2023.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration/The Yomiuri Shimbun via Reuters

This weekend, Japan will attempt to become the fifth country to successfully land on the moon. The spacecraft “Moon Sniper” begins its 20-minute descent at midnight Tokyo time on Friday, armed with a small robot rover designed by the same Japanese toy company that brought us Bayblades and Transformers.

A lot is riding on this attempt: Japan has already failed to land on the moon twice, which allowed India to cruise into the fourth spot in the moon-landing club earlier this summer.

But Japan seems pretty confident that the third time will be the charm. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency even released an online landing simulator video game ahead of the launch. Go Japan! Ganbatte!

More from GZERO Media

Reform UK party leader Nigel Farage gestures as he attends the party's national conference at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, United Kingdom, on September 5, 2025.
REUTERS/Isabel Infantes

Right-wing populist parties are now, for the first time, leading the polls in Europe’s three largest economies.

Graph showing the rise of the missing persons in Mexico from 2000-2024.
Eileen Zhang

Last Saturday, thousands of Mexicans marked the International Day of the Disappeared by taking to the streets of the country’s major cities, imploring the government to do more to find an estimated 130,000 missing persons