Japan’s SLIM spacecraft lowers orbit ahead of Friday moon landing attempt

Japan’s SLIM moon lander has entered a lower, near-circular lunar orbit ahead of its Jan. 19 landing attempt.

The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) initially entered lunar orbit Dec. 25, following an elongated, 110-day journey to the moon.

The spacecraft completed an orbit-lowering maneuver at 3:32 a.m. Eastern Jan. 14, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced. SLIM’s initial 600 x 4,000-kilometer polar lunar orbit has been lowered into a near circular 600-kilometer orbit.

JAXA also confirmed that preparations for landing and descent are complete. The landing will begin at 10:00 a.m. Eastern (1500 UTC) Jan. 19 (00:00 JST, Jan. 20), with touchdown around 20 minutes later.

Live coverage of the landing attempt will begin around an hour before the start of the landing attempt.