Enlarge / This artist’s illustration shows the SLIM spacecraft descending toward the Moon and ejecting two deployable robots onto the lunar surface. (credit: JAXA)

If everything goes according to plan Friday, Japan’s reputation as perhaps the world’s most robot-obsessed nation will extend a quarter-million miles away, all the way to the austere landscape surrounding an impact crater on the Moon.

Japan’s robotic Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) mission will descend down to the lunar surface Friday. The spacecraft was in an orbit of less than 400 miles (600 kilometers) over the lunar surface Thursday, with the final descent maneuvers set to begin early Friday.

SLIM will fire its thrusters to lower the closest point of its orbit to the Moon down to an altitude of just 9 miles (15 kilometers). Then the spacecraft will commence its 20-minute final descent using its two hydrazine-fueled engines, culminating in a landing at 10:20 am EST (15:20 UTC) adjacent to a nearly 900-foot (270-meter) crater named Shioli in a region called the Sea of Nectar on the near side of the Moon.