Japan just became the fifth country to land a spacecraft on the Moon. But after SLIM landed on the moon, the team encountered a serious problem that threatened to disrupt the mission. You are running out of power, because your solar panels are at the wrong angle.
If the problem is not fixed soon, the SLIM (Moon Research Intelligent Lander Module) probe will shut down. The ship is running entirely on batteries. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) carried out some maneuvers to stretch the operations time, such as turning off the heating, but the energy will still be enough for a few more hours.
“JAXA will maintain the status quo instead of taking risky measures and hopes that a change in the angle of sunlight falling on the panels in a way that can restore their functions,” explained Hitoshi Kuninaka, director of the JAXA research center. JAXA, in a press conference.
The angle of the Sun on the moon will take 30 days to changeKuninaka noted. “So when the direction of the sun changes and the light comes from a different direction, it could end up hitting the solar cells,” he added. The SLIM signal was lost this Friday afternoon, according to data from NASA’s Deep Space Network. It is not known if it was a temporary glitch or another energy-saving measure.
Another failure for Japan in its race to the Moon
The Japanese agency launched the SLIM mission in September last year. The probe, nicknamed the “lunar sniper” for its accuracy, began its descent on the Moon finally over the 15:00 UTC (16:00, Spanish peninsular time) this Friday. The maneuver lasted about 20 minutes. This feat has only been achieved before by the United States, the Soviet Union, China and India.
Before this failure, JAXA has faced other key setbacks in its race to the Moon. It had attempted its first lunar landing in 2022, but had to abandon the mission after losing contact with the Omotenashi lander. And last March, the launch of its new flagship H3 rocket failed, with which it intended to compete with other space companies such as SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk. This failure caused several delays in their missions, including SLIM’s.
Even with the risk of running out of power, Japan considers the moon landing a success. “The spacecraft sent telemetry data, meaning that most of the equipment on board was working,” the JAXA director said.
The agency assures that SLIM achieved a soft landing. However, it is expected to take about a month to confirm whether they landed exactly where they had planned. The plan was to land near the Shioli crater, south of the lunar equator. If they achieved the expected accuracy, it would represent a big step between “landing where we can” and “landing where we want,” JAXA said. These high-precision landings will be crucial for future exploration of the Moon.
SLIM had two small robots on board, which were released during the moon landing. The first is LEV-1, a small rover weighing just over 2 kg, which has a thermometer and a radiation sensor. The second It’s called LEV-2, weighing just about 250 grams and equipped with two cameras. Both can send their data directly to Earth. They were expected to do so soon, as they had the capacity to be operational for 40 minutes and 2 hours, respectively. AJAX said who will continue to report on any news.