01/29/2024 – 6:14
The Japanese SLIM lunar module has resumed operations, which suggests that it has managed to restore power supply, the JAXA space agency announced this Monday (29).
The announcement is good news for the Japanese space program, nine days after the module landed on the lunar surface at the wrong angle, with just a few hours of power remaining.
“Last night we managed to reestablish communication with SLIM and resumed operations,” said the Japanese agency on the social network X.
“We immediately started scientific observations with the MBC (multiband spectroscopic camera) and obtained the first light for 10-band observation,” he added.
JAXA also published on X an image captured by the probe of a rock observed near the module.
The SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) module performed a historic landing 55 meters from its initial target, a high degree of precision, which made Japan only the fifth country to land on the Moon, after the United States, Soviet Union , China and India.
Three hours after landing, however, JAXA decided to turn off SLIM, which had only 12% energy remaining, to allow for a possible resumption of operations with the change in solar angle.
The module achieved the objective of landing 100 meters from its target, a much greater precision than other landings, which according to experts generally have a margin of several kilometers.
SLIM was supposed to land in a crater, where it is believed to be possible to access the Moon's mantle, the layer beneath the crust that is normally found at great depth.
Two probes successfully separated, according to JAXA, one with a transmitter and the other designed to roam the lunar surface and send images back to Earth.
This small rover, a little bigger than a tennis ball, was developed in conjunction with the company that created Transformer toys.
Russia, China and other countries, from South Korea to the United Arab Emirates, also have projects for landing on the Moon.
The Peregrine lunar module, from the American company Astrobotic, began to lose fuel after takeoff this month, which ended the mission.
NASA also postponed its Artemis crewed lunar missions.
Japan's two previous lunar missions, one public and one private, failed.
In 2022, the country unsuccessfully launched a lunar probe called Omotenashi as part of the American Artemis 1 mission.
In April last year, Japanese startup ispace unsuccessfully tried to become the first private company to land on the Moon, but lost communication with its spacecraft after a “hard landing”.
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