Japan's SLIM robotic spacecraft landed on the lunar surface on January 19, achieving a huge success for the country as it is the fifth nation to land softly on the closest satellite to Earth.
“First of all, the landing was successful”
he said Yamakawa Hiroshipresident of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), during a post-landing press conference, later adding:
“We should be able to access the lunar surface. I believe there is now an open path towards this.”
The other countries in the moon landing club areSoviet Union and the United Stateswho made their first trips to the lunar surface during the Cold War space race; to close the “ranking”. Chinawhose first landing occurred in December 2013 and theIndiawhose lander-rover duo Chandrayaan-3 landed last August.
But it wasn't all good news for SLIM: The probe's solar panels aren't generating electricity as expected on the lunar surface, JAXA officials said at today's briefing. If the problem is not resolved quickly, SLIM could remain silent forever, also because its battery can support operations on the Moon for only a few hours.
SLIM (abbreviation for “Smart Lander for Investigating Moon“) was launched last September, along with an X-ray space telescope called XRISMwhich was deployed into low Earth orbit shortly after liftoff (and recently sent home its first test images), but SLIM has blasted off to farther celestial shores.
The probe took a long and winding path to the Moon, finally arriving in lunar orbit on Christmas Day, with its initial orbit being highly elliptical, bringing SLIM within 373 miles (600 kilometers) of the lunar surface at its closest and 2,485 miles (4,000 km) at its most distant point.
Early Sunday morning (January 14), SLIM performed a crucial engine burn, circularizing its orbit to an altitude of 373 miles and setting the stage for descent and landing operations.
These operations intensified with another explosion this morning, which raised SLIM's orbit to approximately 9 miles (15 km) above the lunar surface, and culminated in the landing attempt, which began today around 10 a.m. EST (3 p.m. GMT; midnight January 20, Japan time) and concluded 20 minutes later.
Everything seemed to go smoothly with the lander reaching its various milestones during the descent and communicating with its assistants throughout the journey, and beyond, its historic touchdown, despite this JAXA could not immediately confirm the lander's status after landingbut this happened about an hour later, at a press conference.
Why didn't SLIM work as it should? What happened?
It's unclear why the solar cells don't work, JAXA officials said, but they do unlikely to have been damaged during landingbecause the rest of SLIM's hardware appears to be fine and working, but it is It is possible that the lander is not oriented towards the sun as expectedaccording to JAXA.
SLIM aimed to land within 330 feet (100 meters) of the target site on the rim of Shioli crater, accounting for the probe's “Moon Sniper” nickname and, The Planetary Societyin a description of the mission, wrote:
“While impressive in their own right, this mission's landing ambitions are also critical to the future of lunar scientific exploration.”
“Global interest in the Moon is growing, with many nations and commercial entities entering the field. As lunar exploration advances, the need to locate specific sites to address salient scientific questions will also increase. SLIM's mission architecture hopes to shift the bar for lunar landing missions, from landing where easy to landing exactly where desired.”
added the nonprofit advocacy group, led by the former broadcaster “Science Guy” Bill Nye.
Looks like SLIM has achieved the desired landing accuracyJAXA officials said at the press conference, although it may take about a month before the mission team confirms that conclusion.
The Japanese lander also aimed to demonstrate that small, relatively inexpensive spacecraft are capable of impressive exploratory featsthis is because the probe weighs only 440 pounds (200 kilograms) without propellant and, according to The Planetary Society, its development cost approximately 18 billion yen ($120 million).
Although SLIM is primarily a landing technology demonstrator, it was designed to perform some scientific work during its surface mission, which was expected to last one lunar day, or about two Earth weeks (it has no heaters to protect its electronics from the freezing lunar night).
The lander aimed to study its surroundings –a patch of Mare Nectaris (“Sea of Nectar”), located about 15 degrees south of the lunar equator– using its onboard spectrometer. The instrument data could reveal information about the composition of the areawhich in turn could shed light on the moon's formation and evolution, but it won't have the ability to do so unless SLIM's solar panels are operational.
SLIM it also carried two tiny rovers: a small hopper called LEV-1 and a ball-shaped craft known as LEV-2 (“LEV” is the abbreviation for “Lunar Excursion Vehicle”). These little robots were designed to deploy from the SLIM mothership, collect some data and take photos.
The data indicates that both LEV-1 and LEV-2 deployed as plannedJAXA officials said today, and LEV-1 is also known to function, contributing to the mission's results.
SLIM wasn't the first Japanese spacecraft to aim to land on the Moon. The nation put a
small lander called OMOTENASHI in the mission Artemis 1 from the NASAwhich sent an uncrewed Orion capsule to lunar orbit and back in late 2022, but OMOTENASHI managers they failed to establish communications with the probe and its landing attempt was abandoned.
The private lander Hakuto-R made an attempt in April 2023 but was unsuccessful, this is because although it was built and operated by the Tokyo company ispace, it managed to reach lunar orbit but crashed during the landing attempt after having been confused by the edge of a lunar crater.
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