If success is confirmed, Japan will become the fifth country in the world to land a spacecraft on the Moon, after the United States, Russia, China and India.
The Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) said this Friday (Saturday morning in Japan) that its unmanned spacecraft had landed on the Moon, but the agency is still verifying “its status.” More details were to be communicated at a press conference.
The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, descended to the lunar surface around 12:20 a.m. Tokyo time (3:20 p.m. GMT).
SLIM, is a light spacecraft the size of a passenger vehicle. It uses “precision landing” technology that promises far greater control than any previous moon landing.
While most previous probes have used landing zones around 10 kilometers wide, SLIM aimed a target of only 100 meters.
this innovation is the result of two decades of work on precision technology.
The main objective of the mission is to test new landing technology which would allow lunar missions to land “where we want, rather than where it is easy to land,” JAXA said.
After landing, the spacecraft will search for clues about the moon’s origin, including analyzing minerals with a special camera.
The SLIM, equipped with a pad to cushion the impact, aims to land near the Shioli craternear a region covered in volcanic rock.
The closely watched mission comes just 10 days after a lunar mission led by a private US company failed when the spacecraft developed a fuel leak after launch.
Japan also hopes that a success will contribute to regain confidence in its space technology after several failures. A spacecraft designed by a Japanese company crashed during an attempted moon landing in April, and a new flagship rocket failed its first launch last March.
Takeshi Tsuchiya, professor of aeronautics at the Graduate School of Engineering at the University of Tokyo, said confirming the accuracy of landing on a targeted area is important for future lunar explorations.
“It is necessary to show the world that Japan has the appropriate technology so that it can properly assert its position in lunar development”, did he declare. The Moon is important from a resource exploration perspective, and it can also be used as a base to go to other planets, like Mars, he explained.
SLIM transports two small autonomous probes : the LEV-1 and LEV-2 lunar excursion vehicles, which will be released just before landing.
LEV-1, equipped with an antenna and a camera, is responsible for recording the landing of SLIM. LEV-2 is a ball-shaped rover equipped with two cameras, developed by JAXA in collaboration with Sony, toymaker Tomy and Doshisha University.