A year ago, on January 20, 2024, JAXA\u2019s small lunar demonstration lander SLIM successfully landed on the Moon! The LEV-1 rover, which our own project members developed, explored the lunar surface by jumping seven times, and also transmitted back to Earth images of the upside-down SLIM lander taken by the LEV-2 rover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A year has passed since those feats. We are entrusting the accomplishments of LEV-1 to the next generation of small robots, and are conducting R&D on a daily basis with the aim of achieving lunar exploration through these small robots. With the one-year anniversary of the SLIM lunar landing, comments from our project manager Professor Kunii were featured in Tokyo Shimbun. (the comments appeared in the science sections of the Tokyo Shimbun Morning Edition on Sunday, January 19 and Chunichi Shimbun Morning Edition on Monday, September 20)<\/p>\n\n\n\n