The lander’s January 20 touchdown made Japan only the fifth nation to achieve a ‘soft landing’ on the Moon. But the craft suffered engine problems on descent and ended up at a skewed angle.
Japan's SLIM spacecraft has regained power, its space agency said on Monday, more than a week after it achieved an unconventionally precise lunar landing but ran out of electricity because its solar panels were at the wrong angle. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) re-established communication with its Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) late on Sunday, a JAXA spokesperson said, nearly nine days after the probe's touchdown made Japan the fifth country to put a spacecraft on the
Japan's SLIM spacecraft made a strange but precise lunar landing, touching the moon with the tip of its nose as it landed incredibly close its target location.