The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM), nicknamed the "Moon Sniper", was a lunar lander mission operated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Manufactured by Mitsubishi Electric, it was launched on September 6, 2023, aboard an H-IIA rocket from the Tanegashima Space Center, together with the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) space telescope. SLIM entered lunar orbit on December 25, 2023, and successfully soft-landed on the Moon on January 19, 2024, making Japan the fifth country to accomplish a soft landing on the Moon, after the Soviet Union, the United States, China, and India.
Key Facts
| Subject | Smart Lander for Investigating Moon |
| Category | Japanese lunar lander (2023–2024) |
| Reading time | 1 min · Advanced |
| Key date | 2023 |
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