Japan reveals first images of stricken Moon bot after landing on its NOSE – but there’s still hope for historic mission

THE FIRST images of Japan’s troubled Moon lander have been beamed back to Earth, which reveal it has landed on its nose.

Despite the wonky positioning and critically low battery, Japan has praised its ‘pinpoint’ touchdown.

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Japan’s space agency landed SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) within 100metres from the Shioli Crater, on the near side of the Moon, just as planned, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced.

The nation’s goal with the Moon landing was to demonstrate it has the technology necessary to make precise touchdowns.

The nose-down position explains the difficulties SLIM has had in generating power.

Though it also appears one of SLIM’s two main thrusters stopped working during the descent.

“An abnormality in the main engine affected the landing attitude of the spacecraft,” JAXA said in a statement.

SLIM – once dubbed ‘Moon Sniper’ – is now in hibernation mode due to the lander’s solar panels not facing the direction of the Sun.

Now, scientists behind the mission are hoping wake SLIM when lighting angles changing at its landing location.

A moment in history

Japan’s space agency has deemed the landing a success.

And despite its faults, the nation has become the fifth country to land on the moon, following the Soviet Union, the US, China and India last summer.

This was not Japan’s first attempt.

In November, the country attempted a lunar touchdown with its OMOTENASHI lander, as part of Nasa’s uncrewed Artemis one mission.

However, the mini probe failed to reach its destination.

Then in April last year, Japan’s ambitions of becoming the first country to commercially land on the moon were scuppered after contact was lost with the spacecraft.

The founder of the company behind the lander, ispace, admitted that the spacecraft most likely crashed on the Moon.

Before SLIM was put to sleep, controllers were to beam down images taken of the lunar surface by its on-board infrared camera.

The images were sent down to Earth using SLIM’s clever sidekicks – the Sora-Q and Lev-1.

First Sora-Q had to transmit the images to the Lunar Excursion Vehicle 1, or Lev-1 – a second, smaller robot that is ejected out of SLIM.

Lev-1 can then contact mission control using its built-in radio equipment to send images down.

SLIM launched on September 6 last year, and had been swinging in the moon’s orbit since Christmas Day.

The spacecraft cost £95million to create and weighs just 200 kilograms.

JAXA took a slow-and-steady approach to SLIM’s journey to the lunar surface, opting for the more energy-efficient path.

This choice likely comes as a relief to JAXA after watching the fate of the US’ Peregrine one moon lander unfold earlier this month.

The US lunar lander suffered a critical fuel leak just hours into its six-week journey.

Peregrine one, and all contents on-board, eventually disintegrated on the spacecraft’s re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.

Russia and India also took a faster approach with their respective moon landers, and while Russia’s spacecraft eventually crashed – India’s touchdown was a resounding success.

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This post first appeared on Thesun.co.uk