Japan’s space agency JAXA on Thursday released the first images of the historic landing of its SLIM space probe on Earth’s satellite. The spacecraft “succeeded in a precise soft landing,” it was explained when the images of the moon landing were published.
During the evaluation of the data collected during the landing, it became clear, among other things, whether the 2.40 meter long and 1.70 meter wide spacecraft reached the target of landing in the Shioli crater within the planned radius of one hundred meters. SLIM has apparently succeeded in this. “It has been proven that the landing point is 55 meters from the target point,” JAXA reported.
Feeding probe turned off
Shortly after the successful landing on Saturday, the probe was shut down due to power problems. At the same time as this bad news, the space organization JAXA expressed the hope on Monday that a restart could still be successful if the solar radiation on SLIM’s solar cells were favorable.
Japan fifth country with successful landing
SLIM was Japan’s third attempt at a moon landing after two failed missions. Previously, only the US, the Soviet Union, China and India had successfully landed on the moon. Now Japan has become the fifth country to achieve such success.
The Japanese space agency had previously achieved a precision landing on an asteroid, but the challenge is greater on the moon, where gravity is stronger.
Source: Krone
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