HELSINKI — Japan’s SLIM “Moon Sniper” spacecraft made a successful lunar landing Friday, making the country just the fifth to robotically land on the moon.
The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) spacecraft began its descent from a 15-kilometer perilune shortly after 10:00 a.m. Eastern, Jan. 19 (1500 UTC), decelerating from a speed of around 1,700 meters per second.
SLIM appeared to have successfully touched down at 10:20 a.m. (1520 UTC), during a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) livestream of the event. It was not however immediately clear if the landing was successful, with the livestream ending inconclusively. A wait of more than an hour followed for clarification and confirmation.
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