On January 19 at 15:20 UTC, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) made history not only for Japan but for the entire world. The Intelligent Landing Vehicle for Lunar Exploration (SLIM) successfully soft-landed on the Moon. The aim was to be able to do this within as little as 100 meters (330 ft) of a specific target area. Never before have humans attempted to land a spacecraft on another world with such precision. It appears to be successful, but its accuracy is expected to be confirmed next week.

Thanks to SLIM, Japan became the fifth country to make a soft landing on the Moon and the third country this century. Two other Asian countries, China and India, also had no easy success, joining the earlier success of the United States and the former Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s.

SLIM is a manifestation of high-precision landing technology. It used observations from JAXA’s other mission, SELENE (also known as Kaguya), to determine exactly where it was on the lunar surface and navigate precisely to the target location. By comparison, Apollo 11’s expected landing site was a 20-by-5-kilometer (12-by-3.1-mi) ellipse. Getting to “where we want” rather than “where we can” is truly an incredible achievement.

But not everything went perfectly. Following the long-awaited press conference, JAXA confirmed that the SLIM solar cells do not charge or produce electricity, so only batteries are used for now. If the SLIM cannot be charged, its lifespan may only be a few hours. There is a possibility that when the sun changes direction it will hit the solar cells and start charging them, but for now JAXA has shut down part of the spacecraft to save power and is prioritizing uploading landing data and photos taken. Despite all this, the mission has already accomplished a lot, including the precision landing and release of two rovers communicating with Earth.

Both rovers have some interesting experimental designs: The first will move with a jumping mechanism and be equipped with cameras and various scientific payloads. Weighing just 250 grams (9 ounces), the extremely lightweight second rover is a shapeshifter that can change shape to best adapt to the various conditions it may encounter on the lunar surface.

Despite the landing of a man on the moon and many Soviet missions in the past decades, landing and success on our natural satellite is fraught with difficulties – and we’re not just talking about the precision achieved by SLIM today. Japan has failed before. In November 2022, the JAXA OMOTENASHI lander was lost and failed to reach the moon. A similar fate befell a Japanese startup trying to become the first private company to set foot on the moon in April 2023.

Last August, Russia tried to return to the moon. It also ended badly, with the spacecraft crashing into the surface, creating a brand new crater photographed by NASA. Just yesterday, the US special mission Peregrine One also failed to reach the moon, instead burning up when it crashed into Earth’s atmosphere.

While there are many more lunar missions planned for this year, success is not guaranteed even 50 years after humans set foot on the lunar surface. Today, Japan reached an important milestone and took a step forward in lunar exploration.