See the 'crawling,' ball-shaped robot that rolled around the moon during Japan's historic first landing
Japan’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) touched down on the lunar surface in January 2024, but its solar panels failed to generate power, leaving the lander upside‑down. The mission deployed a morphable, spherical rover called LEV‑2, which operated autonomously for about 100 minutes and transmitted images of the lander and surrounding terrain. A June 10, 2026 paper in Science Robotics details the rover’s design and its potential role in future lunar exploration.
- ▪SLIM’s soft landing on 19 January 2024 made Japan the fifth nation to reach the Moon, but the lander could not generate power and rested upside‑down on the surface.
- ▪The Palm‑Sized Lunar Excursion Vehicle 2 (LEV‑2) was released as a payload and used two internal wheels to change shape for different terrain, employing “butterfly stroke” and “crawl” traversal modes.
- ▪During its 100‑minute mission, LEV‑2 captured and relayed images of the inverted SLIM lander through the companion rover LEV‑1 before losing communication.
- ▪The research team, led by JAXA scientist Daichi Hirano, published their findings in Science Robotics, highlighting the rover’s capability as an independent explorer for future lunar missions.
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Space Space Exploration See the 'crawling,' ball-shaped robot that rolled around the moon during Japan's historic first landing A morphable moon robot operated for 100 minutes in 2024, allowing investigators to get images of an upside-down spacecraft on the lunar surface. By Elizabeth Howell published 10 June 2026 in News When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. The Palm-Sized Lunar Excursion Vehicle 2 (LEV-2) deployed to the moon during Japan’s Moon Sniper mission has two primary traversal modes: “butterfly stroke” and “crawl”. (Image credit: D.
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