Japan was waiting for a miracle and it was granted. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) reported this Monday that it had achieved reestablish communication with your SLIM ship, which landed on the Moon last January 19. The space probe had become inoperative a few hours after the moon landing, due to a problem in power generation that has finally been resolved.
Japan, the fifth country in the world to achieve a lunar landing, had explained last week that “an anomaly” in the main engine affected the final landing maneuver. It appears that one of the two large thrusters stopped working during the descent. This caused SLIM (Landing Intelligent Moon Research Module) to capsize.
The error caused its solar panels, with which it would recharge energy, to end up at the wrong angle So, the agency decided to put SLIM in hibernation mode, which was only operational for about three hours thanks to its battery. All hopes were placed on the direction of the sunlight changing, until reaching the position in which the panels were left.
JAXA had said that if this happened, the ship would restart automatically. “Communication with SLIM was successfully established last night and operations resumed!”, the agency said on X (formerly Twitter). With the good news, he published a new photo from the Moon, taken by the camera built into the space probe. He also said that she had immediately resumed Japan’s pending list of observations on the lunar surface.
The pending tasks of Japan’s mission on the Moon
SLIM resumed operations to analyze the composition of olivine rocks, a group of minerals that belong to silicates, in search of clues to the origin of the Moon. Japan’s space probe will use its multiband spectral camera for this. The new image shared by JAXA is a close-up of a rock they nicknamed “Toy Poodel.”
NASA, Japan’s partner in space programs, shared an image of SLIM’s landing site last Friday. It was captured by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been orbiting the Moon since 2009. The moon landing site was a point of honor for the Japan spacecraft missionnicknamed the “moon sniper” for the precision with which he intended to achieve the feat.
The lunar landing module achieved descend to 100 meters from their target, near the Shioli crater, south of the lunar equator. The problem with its engines caused it to deviate about 55 meters, but the team was satisfied. Their achievement surpasses the accuracy of several kilometers achieved so far by other spacecraft. “We have shown that you can land on the moon wherever you want, not where it is possible”said SLIM spacecraft project manager Shinichiro Sakai.
The ship also had two small robots on board, which were released during the landing on the Moon. LEV-1, a small rover weighing just over 2 kg, is equipped with a thermometer and a radiation sensor. And the second It’s called LEV-2, which weighs about 250 grams and has two cameras. Both can send their data directly to Earth.
Japan does not know when the mission will end. But JAXA has explained that SLIM was not designed to survive a night on this side of the Moon.. Darkness on the natural satellite lasts about 14 Earth days. It is so cold that it can damage the ship’s electronic components. Therefore, the operation is likely to end next Thursday, when the next lunar night begins.