SLIM

SLIM, short for Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, is a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency robotic spacecraft launched in September 2023 to demonstrate precision landing technology on the lunar surface. The lander touched down on the Moon on January 20, 2024, making Japan the fifth nation to achieve a soft lunar landing, and it landed within about a hundred meters of its intended target, far more precise than most previous lunar landings. SLIM landed at an unintended tilted angle after one of its engines lost thrust late in descent, but it recovered enough to briefly operate on the surface and returned images and data before Japan space agency ended the mission.