Japan’s first lander, the Intelligent Lander for Exploring the Moon (SLIM), sent images of the lunar surface taken from a satellite orbit back to Earth for the first time. This was reported by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency JAXA. Monochrome photographs published page SLIM tasks on social network X (formerly Twitter).
The module captured the images after it safely entered lunar orbit on December 25.
“SLIM successfully completed main engine activation at 16:51 and reached lunar orbit!” — JAXA commented on the event.
The SLIM lander was launched into space by JAXA on September 6, along with the X-ray telescope XRISM, from the Tanegashima Satellite Launch Center in the southern Japanese archipelago. While XRISM remained in Earth orbit, SLIM left near-Earth space and entered lunar orbit, circling the satellite approximately every 6.4 hours.
SLIM is expected to land near the Moon’s south pole early next month. If the mission is successful, Japan will become the fifth country in history to land a spacecraft on the lunar surface. The USSR, USA, China and India had achieved this before.
JAXA plans to develop landing technology on the SLIM module, which could later be used to launch spacecraft to other planets.
happened before known Landing date of the Japanese SLIM module on the lunar surface.