Japan's space agency announced early Saturday that the spacecraft was on the lunar surface but was still “confirming its status.” Officials said details would be announced at a press conference.
The Smart Lunar Survey Lander (SLIM) touched down on the lunar surface at around 12:20 a.m. Saturday, Tokyo time (15:20 Friday, Japan time).
There were no astronauts on board the spacecraft.
If SLIM successfully lands, Japan will become the fifth country to accomplish the feat, following the United States, Soviet Union, China, and India.
As the spacecraft descended, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency controllers said everything was going according to plan, then announced that SLIM was on the lunar surface.
However, there is no mention of whether the landing was successful or not.
Air traffic controllers reiterated that they were “evaluating the situation” and that further information would be released at a press conference. It was not immediately clear when the press conference would begin.
The space agency known as JAXA said SLIM, nicknamed “Moon Sniper,” began its descent late Saturday night and descended to about 10 kilometers (6 miles) above the moon's surface within 15 minutes.
According to JAXA, at an altitude of 5 kilometers (3 miles) the lander was in vertical descent mode, then 50 meters (165 feet) above the surface, the SLIM was to translate in parallel to find a safe landing site. That's what it means.
About 30 minutes after it was estimated to have landed, JAXA said it was still checking the status of the lander.
Intended to attack very small targets, SLIM is a lightweight spacecraft about the size of a passenger car. It used “pinpoint landing” technology that promised far greater control than previous moon landings.
Most previous spacecraft used landing zones around 10 kilometers (6 miles) wide, but SLIM was aiming at a target just 100 meters (330 feet) wide.
This project is the result of 20 years of precision engineering by JAXA.
JAXA said the mission's main purpose is to test new landing techniques that will allow lunar exploration missions to land “where we want, rather than where it's easy to land.” If the spacecraft successfully lands, it will search for clues about the moon's origins, including analyzing minerals with a special camera.
SLIM, equipped with shock-absorbing pads, aimed to land near the Shiori Crater, near an area covered in volcanic rock. The closely watched mission came just 10 days after a failed attempt by a private U.S. company to explore the moon during the spacecraft's development. Fuel leaked several hours after launch.
SLIM was launched on a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries H2A rocket in September. It initially orbited the Earth, but entered lunar orbit on December 25th.
Japan hopes success will help restore faith in space technology after a number of failures. In April, a spacecraft designed by a Japanese company crashed during an attempt to land on the moon, and in March, a new workhorse rocket failed on its first launch.
AXA has a track record of difficult landings. The Hayabusa2 spacecraft, launched in 2014, landed twice on the 900-meter (3,000-foot) asteroid Ryugu, collecting samples and bringing them back to Earth.
Experts say a successful SLIM pinpoint landing, especially on the moon, would raise Japan's profile in the global space technology race.
Takeshi Tsuchiya, a professor of aeronautics at the University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Engineering, said it will be important for future lunar exploration to confirm the accuracy of landing on the target area.
“To properly assert Japan's position in lunar development, Japan needs to demonstrate to the world that it has the appropriate technology,” he said. He said the moon is important from a resource exploration perspective and could also be used as a base to go to other planets like Mars.
SLIM carries two small autonomous rovers, the Lunar Explorers LEV-1 and LEV-2, which will be released shortly before landing.
LEV-1, equipped with an antenna and a camera, is tasked with recording SLIM landings. LEV-2 is a ball-shaped rover equipped with two cameras, developed by JAXA in collaboration with Sony, toy manufacturer Takara Tomy, and Doshisha University.
JAXA will livestream the landing, and space fans will gather to watch the historic moment on a big screen at the agency's Sagamihara campus southwest of Tokyo.
