Japanese space probe successfully lands on the Moon

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced on January 20 that its Smart Lander for Lunar Investigation (SLIM) had landed on the surface of the Moon, and said it was checking the current status of the craft after establishing contact.

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Japan's space probe lands on the Moon. (Source: JAXA)

If successful, SLIM, which will enter orbit on December 25, 2023, will be Japan's first spacecraft to begin a mission to the Moon, following landings by the Soviet Union, the United States, China and India on Earth's only natural satellite.

JAXA hopes this expedition will contribute to clarifying the origin of the Moon by analyzing the composition of rocks believed to be part of the surface of this celestial body through the superior features of SLIM, the spacecraft dubbed "Moon Sniper".

According to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the SLIM spacecraft is designed to test technology for precision landing on the surface of gravitational objects with unprecedented accuracy, just under 100 meters from the intended target, in contrast to previous lunar landers, which had an accuracy of several kilometers to several tens of kilometers.

JAXA also hopes that the successful SLIM landing will create a transition from the era of "landing where possible" to "landing where desired" for future lunar exploration missions, which may include searching for water, requiring precision landing on uneven terrain, such as sloped surfaces.

The SLIM probe was launched on an H2A rocket on September 7, 2023, from the Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture, southwestern Japan. The launch was originally scheduled for around May 2023 but was delayed due to the failure of Japan's next-generation H3 rocket a few months earlier. The launch was postponed again in August 2023 due to weather.

The SLIM lunar mission comes as many countries are trying to explore the celestial body. After the US, the Soviet Union and China, India has become the fourth country to successfully land a spacecraft on the Moon. India's Chandrayaan-3 lander will land near the lunar south pole in August 2023.

However, landing on the Moon's surface is not a simple task. In April 2023, the Japanese company Ispace's Hakuto-R lunar lander crashed into the Moon's surface while attempting to land. In August 2023, the Luna-25 lunar lander also crashed into the Moon's surface while attempting to land.

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