The small Japanese spacecraft SLIM, which landed on the moon last Saturday, landed about 55 m from its target. This is a very high level of precision, the Japanese space agency (Jaxa) announced this Thursday. The machine is also called the “Moon Sniper” due to its ability to land precisely.
The goal of landing this machine on the moon within a radius of 100 m from the target point, compared to several kilometers usually for lunar missions, was achieved. Jaxa also published this Thursday the first images of this lunar landing, which represents an unprecedented achievement for Japan.
This monochrome image was captured by one of the devices sent to the moon with the module.
AFP/Jaxa
This other photo shows lunar rocks with the nicknames given to them.
AFP/Jaxa
With this mission, Japan becomes the fifth country in the world to successfully land on Earth's natural satellite, after the United States, the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), China and India.
A reboot of solar panels?
But the Japanese performance comes with a serious downside. SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) had a problem with its solar panels. This forced the Jaxa to turn off its power less than three hours after the moon landing to conserve its batteries for a possible restart at a later date.
Jaxa believes it is possible that SLIM's solar panels will work again if the angle of the sun changes at the lunar landing site. Located in a small crater called Shioli, less than 300 m in diameter, SLIM was able to land normally its two mini-rovers designed to conduct analyzes of rocks from the Moon's internal structure (the lunar mantle). again very little known.