Japan has become the fifth country to have a spacecraft land on the moon, but the probe did not generate solar power, the national space agency said.
The goal of the mission was to demonstrate "precision" landing technology and revitalize a space program that had suffered setbacks.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAKSA) said its Smart Lunar Exploration Lander (SLIM) landed on the surface at around 12:20 p.m. and re-established communication with Earth, but its solar panels were unable to generate electricity, possibly because they were misaligned. lean down.
"SLIM is now running on battery only, and our priority is to transmit its data to Earth," Hitoshi Kuninaka, head of the JAKSA space laboratory, said at a press conference.
Dubbed the "Moon Sniper," SLIM attempted to land within 100 meters of a target, compared to conventional accuracy of several kilometers. JAKSA said that this technology will become a powerful tool in the future exploration of hilly lunar regions, which are considered a potential source of oxygen, fuel and water.
It will take up to a month to verify that SLIM has achieved its high-precision targets, JAKSA said.
Japan wants to play a bigger role in space, partnering with its ally the United States to counter China. Japan is also home to several private-sector space start-up projects, and JAKSA aims to send an astronaut to the moon as part of NASA's Artemis program in the next few years.
However, Japan's space agency has recently faced multiple setbacks in rocket development, including the failed launch in March of the flagship H3 rocket that was meant to be a cost competitor to commercial rocket suppliers such as SpaceX.
Only four countries - the former Soviet Union, the United States, China and India - have succeeded in soft landing on the moon, and so far no foreign company has succeeded.
