A Japanese spacecraft landed on the moon early Saturday, making Japan the fifth country to reach the lunar surface. But officials said they still needed to analyze the pinpoint accuracy of the landing.
Hitoshi Kuninaka, head of the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, said they believe rovers have been launched and data has been returned to Earth. But there may be a problem with the power supply.
The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, touched down around 12:20 PM Tokyo time on Saturday (1520 GMT Friday). Japan follows the United States, the Soviet Union, China and India in reaching the moon.
Mission Control continued to reiterate that it was checking the status and that more information would be provided at a news conference. It was not immediately clear when the press conference would start.
SLIM, nicknamed “the Moon Sniper,” began its descent at midnight Saturday and within 15 minutes had descended to about 10 km (six miles) above the moon’s surface, according to the space agency, known as JAXA.
At an altitude of five km (three miles), the lander was in a vertical descent mode, after which SLIM had to make a parallel move 50 meters (165 feet) above the surface to find a safe landing spot, JAXA said.
About half an hour after the suspected landing, JAXA said it was still checking the status of the lander.
SLIM, which aimed to hit a very small target, is a lightweight spacecraft the size of a passenger vehicle. Precision landing technology was used that promises far greater control than any previous moon landing.
While most previous probes used landing zones about 10 km (6 mi) wide, SLIM aimed for a target just 100 meters (330 feet) away.
The project was the fruit of twenty years of work in precision technology by JAXA.
The main purpose of the mission is to test new landing technology that will allow lunar missions to land where we want, rather than where it is easy to land, JAXA said. If the landing was a success, the spacecraft will search for clues about the moon’s origins, including analyzing minerals with a special camera.
The SLIM, equipped with a cushion to absorb the impact, aimed to land near the Shioli crater, near an area covered in volcanic rock.
The closely watched mission came just 10 days after a US private company’s moon mission failed when the spacecraft developed a fuel leak hours after launch.
SLIM was launched in September on a Mitsubishi Heavy H2A rocket. It initially orbited the Earth and entered lunar orbit on December 25.
Japan hopes a success will help regain confidence in its space technology after a series of failures. A spacecraft designed by a Japanese company crashed during a moon landing attempt in April, and a new flagship rocket failed to make its first launch in March.
JAXA has a track record of difficult landings. Its Hayabusa2 spacecraft, launched in 2014, landed twice on the 900-meter asteroid Ryugu and collected samples that were returned to Earth.
Experts say a success of SLIM’s precision landing, especially on the moon, would increase Japan’s prominence in the global space technology race.
Takeshi Tsuchiya, a professor of aeronautics at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Engineering, said confirming the accuracy of the landing in a specific area was important for the future of lunar exploration.
It is necessary to show the world that Japan has the right technology to properly maintain Japan’s position in lunar development, he said. The moon is important from the perspective of resource exploration, and can also be used as a base to go to other planets such as Mars, he said.
SLIM has two small autonomous lunar probe vehicles LEV-1 and LEV-2 on board, which will be released just before landing.
LEV-1, equipped with an antenna and a camera, is tasked with recording SLIM’s landing. LEV-2 is a spherical rover equipped with two cameras, developed by JAXA together with Sony, toymaker Tomy and Doshisha University.
JAXA will broadcast a livestream of the landing, while space fans will gather to watch the historic moment on a big screen at the agency’s Sagamihara campus, southwest of Tokyo.
(Only the headline and image of this report may have been reworked by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
First print: January 19, 2024 | 11:54 PM IST