Japan’s precision moon lander has hit its target, but it appears to be upside-down

By MARI YAMAGUCHI
Associated Press

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s space agency said Thursday that its first lunar mission hit the tiny patch of the moon’s surface it was aiming for in a successful demonstration of its pinpoint landing system — although it appears to be sitting upside-down. Japan became the fifth country in history to reach the moon when the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, touched down on the Moon early on Saturday. But trouble with the probe’s solar batteries made it hard at first to figure whether the probe landed in the target zone. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA determined that the spacecraft landed about 55 meters (60 yards) away from its target.