The spacecraft ran on battery power for several hours before authorities decided to turn it off to allow for a possible recovery of electricity when the angle of sunlight changed.

The lander will analyse the composition of rocks in its search for clues about the origin of the moon, Jaxa said.

Slim landed at the edge of an equatorial crater known as Shioli, within 55m (180 ft) of its target in a crater. Jaxa described it as an “unprecedented pinpoint landing”.

The landing technology could allow future exploration of hilly Moon poles seen as a potential sources of fuel, water and oxygen, the agency said.

The Slim mission came after several earlier attempts by Japan failed, including one by the start-up iSpace, which saw its lunar lander crash when its onboard computer became confused about its altitude above the Moon.

Jaxa could not immediately say until when Slim will operate on the Moon. It has previously said the lander was not designed to survive a lunar night. A lunar night, which is when the surface of the Moon is not exposed to the Sun, lasts about 14 days.

Prior to Japan, India was the most recent nation to join the elite club of countries that have achieved this. Its Chandrayaan-3’s rover touched down near the lunar south pole in August 2023 – an area on the Moon’s surface that no human had reached before.

Earlier this month, a US spacecraft launched by a private operator ended its lunar mission in flames over the Pacific. In August last year, Russia’s first lunar spacecraft in decades crashed into the Moon after spinning out of control.

Source: BBC