Japan’s SLIM lunar lander made it to the moon on Friday but its status was unclear. File Photo by JAXA/EPA-EFE
Japan’s space agency successfully touched down a spacecraft on the moon Friday morning, becoming the fifth country to land on the lunar surface.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, arrived on the moon at 10:20 a.m. EST, but officials were still attempting to determine the status of the spacecraft. Advertisement
“From the telemetry, what we see is the SLIM has landed,” a JAXA spokesperson said. “We are now checking the status.”
The agency is set to hold a press conference once the status of the lander is confirmed.
If the mission is ultimately successful, Japan would join the United States, Russia, China and India in making a soft landing on the moon.
SLIM lowered itself to about 10 miles above the moon’s rocky ground before the landing, completing its four-month journey from Earth.
The spacecraft’s cameras took photos of the moon’s surface while on the descent and matched them to photos already loaded into its computer to detect its location. Japan space officials said SLIM was expected to land about 330 feet off the ground target on the rim of the Shioli Crater. Advertisement
The landing would be a boon for Japan’s space agency after failures. A small lander that took off from Earth in November 2022 never made it to the moon and in April 2023 the Hakuto-R spaceship crashed on the moon after a sensor failure.
Emma Gatti, a former NASA scientist and editor-in-chief of SpaceWatch Global called the Japanese landing “historic” given the size of the country and getting so close to its intended landing target, according to the BBC News.
