Tokyo. Japan’s space agency said on Thursday that its Moon mission’s ‘lander’ has successfully reached its intended target, but investigation shows that it is upside down. After the ‘Smart Lander’ or ‘Slim’ mission reached the Moon on Saturday, Japan became the fifth country in the world to reach the Moon. But due to technical problems with solar batteries, it was initially difficult to find out whether it reached its target or not. The Japanese spacecraft had landed on the surface of the Moon early Saturday morning local time.
One of the lander’s main engines lost expected power about 50 meters (54 yd) above the lunar surface, preventing the planned landing. After analyzing data for a few days, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, said the spacecraft landed about 55 meters (60 yards) short of its target, near Shioli Crater, an area covered in volcanic rock.
The Lunar Excursion Vehicle 2 (LEV-2 / SORA-Q) has successfully taken an image of the #SLIM spacecraft on the Moon. LEV-2 is the world’s first robot to conduct fully autonomous exploration on the lunar surface. https://t.co/NOboD0ZJIr pic.twitter.com/mfuuceu2WA
— JAXA Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (@ISAS_JAXA_EN) January 25, 2024
The lander of the lunar mission has sent some box-shaped pictures of the surface but it appeared upside down. JAXA project manager Shinichiro Sakai said the images sent were exactly what he had imagined and seen in computer graphics. Before Japan, America, Soviet Union, China and India had reached the surface of the Moon. Last year, India became the fourth country in the world to make a successful ‘soft landing’ on the moon.