SLIM

The engineers behind SLIM have used machine learning to give the spacecraft “smart eyes.” 

Stored on its data disks are high resolution maps of the moon’s craters captured from lunar orbit by JAXA’s Kaguya mission and NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft. 

As SLIM flies toward the planned landing site, its cameras will start snapping photographs of the terrain below. SLIM’s onboard computer will then run a rapid image matching algorithm to locate the craters visible in the photographs on the lunar maps. 

This allows the spacecraft to swiftly identify its location to a high degree of precision and then autonomously adjust course until it is exactly above the target landing site.

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