A Japanese spacecraft made a historic “pinpoint” landing on the surface of the moon at the weekend, the country’s space agency has said, but there is a slight snag: the images being sent back suggest the probe is lying upside-down. Ednews reports referring to the Guardian.

Nevertheless, space officials are describing the mission as a success, despite the fact that the probe, nicknamed the “moon sniper”, appears to have tumbled down a crater slope, leaving its solar batteries facing in the wrong direction and unable to generate electricity.

Japan became only the fifth country to put a craft on the lunar surface – after the US, the Soviet Union, China and India – when its Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (Slim) touched down in the early hours of Saturday.

Trouble with the probe’s solar batteries initially made it difficult to determine if it had landed in the intended area. But data retrieved by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa) shows it landed 55 metres from the target site, in between two craters in a region covered in volcanic rock.Japanese officials said the landing had been made with unprecedented precision. Most previous probes have aimed for much wider touchdown zones measuring up to 10 kilometres in width – a reflection of the myriad challenges moon landings present 54 years after humans first set foot on the lunar surface.

Japan hopes the mission will boost its space programme after a series of failures. A spacecraft designed by a Japanese company crashed during a lunar landing attempt in April, and a new flagship rocket failed during its debut launch in March.