The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has announced that the lunar lander it launched last summer, with which it seeks to make the country’s first successful lunar landing, has successfully entered lunar orbit and is continuing its mission properly.
The SLIM module “was successfully inserted into lunar orbit on December 25, 2023 at 16:51 Japan Standard Time” (7:51 GMT on Monday), the agency announced in a statement.
“The orbit change has been achieved according to the prescribed plan and the spacecraft is in normal condition,” JAXA added.
In mid-January, the device is scheduled to begin the necessary adjustments for landing on the surface of the Moon, which, if all goes according to plan, should occur after midnight on January 20, 2024, local Japanese time.
This SLIM module, launched on September 7 together with the XRISM galactic research satellite (belonging to a different mission coordinated between JAXA, the American NASA and the European Space Agency), represents a new attempt by Japan to make its first successful moon landing after several failed.
The module will attempt to touch the lunar surface near the Shioli crater, near the lunar equator, in an attempt to make “the most precise landing” to date, JAXA said at the time.
The device will take images that will be used in the Artemis lunar exploration project, which aims to facilitate the return of humans to the Moon and, ultimately, the exploration of Mars.
If achieved, Japan would be the fifth country to land a module on the Moon, after the former Soviet Union, the US, China and India.
