BBC
By Jonathan Amos
January 25, 2025
Japan’s Moon lander ended up on its nose when it made its historic touchdown on the lunar surface.
The first picture of the stricken Slim spacecraft shows it rotated 90 degrees from how it should have come to rest.
This will go some way to explaining the difficulties it has had in generating the electricity needed to operate.
The image was captured by the small baseball-sized robot called Sora-Q that was ejected from Slim moments before touchdown last Saturday.
“An abnormality in the main engine affected the landing attitude of the spacecraft,” the Japanese space agency Jaxa said in a statement.