Japan’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM), a spacecraft developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), has made history by becoming the fifth country to achieve a lunar landing. However, the landing did not go entirely as planned, as the spacecraft ended up touching down on the moon’s surface upside down. This anomaly occurred due to an abnormality in the main engine during the spacecraft’s final approach, about 50 meters above the lunar surface.
Despite the landing orientation issue, SLIM impressively managed to land only 55 meters away from its intended target site, near the Shioli crater, a region rich in volcanic rock. This feat is considered a success in demonstrating Japan’s capability for precision in lunar landings. Notably, SLIM’s main engines lost thrust near the moon’s surface, leading to a harder-than-expected landing.
The spacecraft carried two small autonomous probes, LEV-1 and LEV-2. LEV-1, equipped with an antenna and a camera, was tasked with recording SLIM’s landing and transmitting images back to Earth. LEV-2, developed in collaboration with Sony and others, is a ball-shaped rover equipped with two cameras. These probes successfully transmitted images of the SLIM on the lunar surface, confirming its location and orientation.
JAXA is known for its achievements in challenging space missions, including the Hayabusa2 spacecraft, which successfully collected samples from the asteroid Ryugu and returned them to Earth. The SLIM mission, despite its unconventional landing, has been hailed as a milestone in Japan’s space exploration history, opening new possibilities for future lunar missions and interplanetary exploration.