I think ‘age of the last moon landing’ is a pretty piss poor metric for how well a space program is doing. Remember two years ago when NASA landed the most advanced rover ever built and a friggin helicopter on mars? Remember how the helicopter was only designed to last a handful of sols and flights but is still to this day flying actual survey missions scouting for the rover?
I’m sorry but I think your metric for what ranks various space agencies capabilities is absolutely hog wash.
EDIT: You also seem to have missed in your assessment, the primary mission goal of the SLIM Lander. Japan was testing a landing technology that would allow vehicles to land ‘within 100 meters of a chosen landing site’. A goal JAXA achieved with this mission despite the solar panel issue. To give some context, up until now most landing sites are chosen for a margin of error up to several Kilometers.
I think ‘age of the last moon landing’ is a pretty piss poor metric for how well a space program is doing. Remember two years ago when NASA landed the most advanced rover ever built and a friggin helicopter on mars? Remember how the helicopter was only designed to last a handful of sols and flights but is still to this day flying actual survey missions scouting for the rover?
I’m sorry but I think your metric for what ranks various space agencies capabilities is absolutely hog wash.
EDIT: You also seem to have missed in your assessment, the primary mission goal of the SLIM Lander. Japan was testing a landing technology that would allow vehicles to land ‘within 100 meters of a chosen landing site’. A goal JAXA achieved with this mission despite the solar panel issue. To give some context, up until now most landing sites are chosen for a margin of error up to several Kilometers.