Japan's 'Moon Sniper' finally lands on lunar surface after series of setbacks

Japan's space agency said on Saturday that it was reviewing the communication with its probe following its successful moon landing in an effort to revive the space programme that had recently faced setbacks and become the fifth nation in history to accomplish a moonshot.

The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (Slim) touched down on the moon's surface at approximately 12:20am (1520 GMT Friday), according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa), but it was still verifying connectivity with the probe, according to Reuters.

Dubbed the "moon sniper," Slim aimed to land at a distance of only 100 metres (328 feet) instead of the usual several kilometres.

According to Jaxa, this landing technology will be an effective instrument in the exploration of hilly moon poles in the future, which are thought to be possible sources of oxygen, fuel, and water—elements required for life. Jaxa could take up to a month to confirm if Slim had met the high-precision targets.

Japan is attempting to fight China by collaborating with its ally, the United States, to take a more active role in space. A number of private space firms are based in Japan, and in the coming years, Jaxa hopes to launch an astronaut to the moon as part of Nasa's Artemis programme.

Nevertheless, the Japanese space agency has recently seen a number of setbacks in the construction of rockets, such as the March launch failure of its new flagship rocket, the H3, which was intended to equal SpaceX's and other private rocket providers' cost-competitiveness.