Japanese Spacecraft Makes History with Perfect Moon Landing
Japan has become the fifth country in the world to successfully land a spacecraft on the Moon. The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM), also known as "Moon Sniper," executed a precision landing closer to its intended target than any previous mission. With the goal of studying the Moon's surface and conducting groundbreaking scientific research, SLIM embarked on its journey from the Tanegashima Space Centre and touched down near the Shioli crater, south of the lunar equator.
The primary objective of the SLIM mission was to achieve an unparalleled level of accuracy in lunar landing. Previous missions had recorded landing ranges of only a few to dozens of kilometers, whereas SLIM aimed to touch down with a precision of 100 meters. Equipped with vision-based navigation technology, th...