Japan's moon lander is stuck UPSIDE DOWN: Incredible images reveal how the craft hit the tiny patch of the lunar surface it was aiming for - but overrotated onto its nose when an engine lost power

The lander successfully touched down safely within the 330ft target zone  However JAXA says an engine failure caused it to roll upside down upon landing  

Japan’s challenging mission to land on the moon successfully hit the tiny patch of the lunar surface it was aiming for – but there is one small problem.

The $120 million lander appears to be stuck upside down.

After celebrating becoming the fifth nation to successfully land on the moon last Friday, the mood quickly turned to worry when the lander’s batteries failed to charge.

It has now been revealed that the reason for the failure is that SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating the Moon) rotated onto its nose when an engine lost power.

Despite this, Shinichiro Sakai, the JAXA project manager, says he would give the pinpoint landing ‘a perfect score’.

The first pictures of Japan’s SLIM lander reveal that it has become stuck on its nose upside down on the lunar surface. However, the Japanese space agency says it would give the precision landing a ‘perfect score’

While previous probes have targeted landing zones six miles (10km) in diameter, JAXA aimed to hit a zone no more than 330ft (100m) across.

Japan has heavily invested in precision landing technology, earning the project the nickname ‘Moon Sniper’.

The lander’s power issues have made determining the exact landing location difficult but, after days of analysis, JAXA has confirmed that the precision landing was a success.

The space agency says that SLIM landed only 180ft (55m) from its target location.

Mr Sakai said: ‘We demonstrated that we can land where we want.

‘We opened a door to a new era.’

SLIM was supposed to rotate before landing on its side so that it wouldn’t topple over on the steep slopes of the Shioli crater. JAXA now says that one main engine failed, causing the lander to hit the ground faster than expected

When it became clear that SLIM could not be charged, the space agency made the decision to deactivate the lander while it was at 12 per cent charge.

JAXA says that SLIM may be able to start charging when the landing site enters lunar daytime in the next few days and hopes keeping some charge will help in turning it back on.

Before being shut down, however, SLIM was able to gather a number of images using its multi-band spectroscopic camera which were patched together in a mosaic.

By comparing the small rocks on the lunar surface to data recorded by India’s Chandrayaan-2 lander, JAXA was able to work out SLIM’s position.

By comparing images taken by SLIM (left) with a map of known moon rocks (right)  the scientists at JAXA have been able to pinpoint the lander’s location

This diagram shows the distance between SLIM’s target landing site and where it actually landed (right). The two blue squares are images taken by SLIM upon approach and the red square shows where SLIM had determined would be the safest place to land before engine failure pushed it off course

The reason SLIM needed to be so accurate was that it was attempting to land on a 15-degree slope covered in rubble on the Shioli crater.

JAXA was aware this created a high risk of the craft toppling over but hoped to study the rocks around the crater to learn more about the moon’s formation.

However, JAXA now says that one of the lander’s main engines lost thrust about 165ft (50m) above the lunar surface.

This caused SLIM to land much faster than had been anticipated and topple over onto its nose.

Before landing SLIM successfully launched two micro-robot probes onto the moon.

These were the LEV-2, a baseball-sized camera drone designed by toy maker Tommy, and Lev-1, a leaping drone equipped with a radio-communications device.

LEV-2 took 275 images of its surroundings which LEV-1 was able to broadcast back to Earth.

LEV-2, a baseball-sized drone made by Japanese toy maker Tommy, was launched onto the lunar surface and took the first images of the lander stuck on its nose

As the lander made its descent it launched the two drones. LEV-2 rolls about with a camera and sends images to LEV-1 which can leap over the lunar surface. LEV-1 carries broadcast equipment that lets it send the images back to Earth

These first images provided the first confirmation that SLIM had become stuck on its nose.

But Mr Sakai says the images sent back were just like those he had imagined and seen in computer renderings.

He added: ‘Something we designed travelled all the way to the moon and took that snapshot. I almost fell down when I saw it.’

Daichi Hirano, a JAXA scientist who designed LEV-2, also known as Sora-Q, said it selected images containing SLIM and nearby lunar surface and transmitted the images through LEV-1, making the pair the world’s first to achieve the mission.

And, at only 4.6lbs (2.1kg) JAXA says this is the smallest and lightest object to ever broadcast directly to Earth from the moon.

Shinichiro Sakai (pictured), project manager for the lander mission, said he nearly fell down seeing the images of the craft on the Moon, adding that they were just how he had imagined they would look

This follows a string of setbacks in recent attempts to return to the moon.

America’s Peregrine lander was forced to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere earlier this month after experiencing a massive fuel leak after launch.

The failure may have contributed to NASA’s decision to push back their scheduled Artemis III crewed landing to 2026 citing ‘safety concerns.’

A spacecraft designed by a Japanese company crashed during a lunar landing attempt in April and a new flagship rocket failed its debut launch in March.

However, JAXA has a successful track record with precision landings.

Its Hayabusa2 spacecraft, launched in 2014, touched down twice on the 900m-long (3,000ft-long) asteroid Ryugu, collecting samples that were returned to Earth.