( CNN ) Japan 's space agency announced this week that the country would put an unmanned rover on the surface of the moon by 2018 , joining an elite club of nations who have explored Earth 's satellite . The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency ( JAXA ) , divulged the plan to an expert panel , including members of the cabinet and the Education , Culture , Sports , Science and Technology Ministry on Monday . `` This is an initial step and a lot of procedures are still ahead before the plan is formally approved , '' a JAXA spokesperson told reporters . If it is approved , the agency will reportedly use its Epsilon solid-fuel rocket technology to carry and deploy a SLIM probe -- the acronym stands for `` Smart Lander for Investigating Moon '' -- on the surface of the celestial body . Japanese media estimates that the mission will cost in the region of ¥10 billion to ¥15 billion ( $ 83.4 million - $ 125 million ) . JAXA spokesperson Chihito Onda confirmed to CNN that this estimate is realistic . The mission is expected to be used to perfect soft-landing technologies , which could be utilized in future , manned expeditions to the moon , or even Mars . The lander will use face recognition software found in digital cameras , which will be repurposed to enable the craft to recognize craters on the surface , Onda said . The move could be seen as Japan 's attempt to play catchup to its Asian neighbors China and India , which have both notched significant extraterrestrial victories in recent years -- China 's Yutu lunar rover outlasted expectations and India successfully put a probe into orbit around Mars the first time of asking . In 2008 Japan put its SELENE craft -- known in Japan as Kaguya , after a Japanese moon princess from a 10th century folk tale -- into orbit around the moon to gather data about its surface . The data gathered by the orbiter will also be used to calculate a suitable landing site for the rover . JAXA has also put a probe on an asteroid , which returned to Earth in 2010 . Along with China , the United States and the former Soviet Union are the only other nations to have so far landed craft on the surface of the moon . CNN 's Junko Ogura contributed to this report .
Japan aims to put an unmanned rover on the surface of the moon by 2018 . The mission is expected to to be used to perfect technologies which could be utilized for future manned space missions .