Japan has released photos of its arrival on the Moon: landing with historic precision but with an unusual complication

THE first lunar mission of the Japanese special agency He reached the small patch of lunar surface he intended to reach, successfully demonstrating his precise landing system. However, The form appears to have been left upside down.

Japan became the fifth country in history to reach the Moon when the SLIM (Intelligent Landing Module for Lunar Research) landed on the Moon on Saturday morning. But the difficulties with solar batteries of the team initially made it difficult to determine whether it had reached the target area.

While most previous lunar probes had landing zones 10 kilometers wide, SLIM aimed at a target of only 100 meters. Improving such targeting would give scientists greater access to the Moon, as probes could be placed closer to obstacles.

One of the probe’s main engines lost power about 50 meters from the lunar surface, causing a steeper-than-expected descent.

Two autonomous SLIM probes deployed before the Moon landing They sent photos of the vehiclebox-shaped, on the surface, where it appears to be upside down.

After a few days of data analysis, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) determined this The ship had landed 55 meters from its targetbetween two craters near Shioli Crater, a region covered in volcanic rock.

But after the failed landing, the solar panels ended up facing the wrong direction and the module cannot generate power. Agency members said there is still hope that the probe can recharge when the Moon begins its diurnal period in the next few days.

JAXA project manager Shinichiro Sakai said the images presented were just as he had imagined them and as he had seen them in computer recreations.

“Something we designed traveled to the Moon and took that photo. “I almost fell when I saw it,” she said. Regarding landing accuracy, Sakai stated that he would give it a “perfect score” to THIN. “We have shown that we can get where we want. “We open a door to a new era,” she said.

LEV-1, a jumping robot equipped with an antenna and camera, was tasked with recording SLIM’s moon landing and transmitting the images to Earth. The LEV-2 is a baseball-sized wheeled vehicle equipped with two cameras and developed by JAXA together with Sony, toymaker Tomy Co. and Doshisha University.

The two autonomous probes frame and select images independently and both use the LEV-1 antenna to send them back to the base.

Daichi Hirano, a JAXA scientist who designed LEV-2, also known as Sora-Q, said he selected images showing SLIM and the lunar surface and sent them via LEV-1, making the two devices the first to fulfill their mission. Despite the complications, The probes acquired and sent 275 images.

Japan joined the United States, the Soviet Union, China and India in reaching the lunar surface.

The project was the result of two decades of work on JAXA precision technology.

The agency has a history of rocky landings. Its Hayabusa2 spacecraft, launched in 2014, landed twice on the 900-meter-long asteroid Ryugu, where it collected samples that then reached Earth.

SLIM aimed to search for clues to the Moon’s origin, which included analyzing minerals with a special camera. The module was launched in September on a Mitsubishi Heavy H2A rocket. It first orbited the Earth, before entering lunar orbit on December 25.

Japan aims to regain confidence in its space technology after several failures. A spacecraft designed by a Japanese company crashed in April while trying to land on the Moon, and a new flagship rocket failed on its debut launch in March.