On 19 January, Friday, a robotic Japanese moon lander descended to the lunar surface.
However, it was not long until a power malfunction of some kind stopped its solar cells from producing enough electricity to sustain it in the hostile lunar environment.
Because of this, mission management stated that it was anticipated that the otherwise in good-condition Smart Lander for Investigating the Moon, or SLIM, would run out of batteries a few hours after landing, rendering it helpless and unable to send orders or send telemetry and scientific data back to Earth. In translated statements to reporters, Hitoshi Kuninaka, director general of the Japan Aerospace Research Agency, or JAXA, stated that the spacecraft is regularly responding to orders from Earth and that the SLIM has been in communication with the Earth station.
On the other hand, it appears that the solar cells aren’t producing any power right now. Additionally, since we are unable to produce electricity, batteries are being used to power the process. We are working to optimize the scientific yield while attempting to return the stored data to Earth.”
Japanese landing on the moon is under threat of a technical issue
Near an equatorial crater, the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (Slim) softly touched down on the moon. This accomplishment positioned the Asian nation as the fifth, after the US, the Soviet Union, China, and India, to soft-land on an Earthly satellite. Now, though, engineers are fighting to keep the mission alive.
The craft’s solar cells will not produce electricity for reasons that are now unclear. Slim will ultimately have to rely on its batteries as a result of this. The craft will go quiet when they do. It will be incapable of speaking with Earth and receiving orders.
To identify the source of the solar cell issue and the lander’s next course of action, the JAXA team is examining the data while the lander runs on a restricted battery that should only last a few hours. The spacecraft may not be pointed in the proper direction, which might be the cause of the solar cell problem, according to JAXA officials.
The goal of Japan’s Smart Lander on the moon
SLIM, a space telescope, was launched alongside the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission on 6 September 2023, aiming to demonstrate a precise lunar landing near the Shioli crater via a weak stability boundary-like trajectory, entering lunar orbit on 25 December JST. Moon Japan successfully soft-landed its operational lunar lander, Moon Sniper, on the Moon, becoming the fifth nation to do so. The lander, with a precision of 100 meters, was nicknamed Moon Sniper. However, JAXA was unable to generate power due to the incorrect orientation of its solar panels.
In addition, SLIM’s successful precision landing will boost Japan‘s standing in the international space race—especially on the moon. Aeronautics professor Takeshi Tsuchiya of the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Engineering stated that it was critical to verify the precision of landing on a desired location.
Moon Sniper’s journey
The Moon Sniper targeted a landing spot south of the Sea of Tranquility, where Apollo 11 landed in 1969, and close to the tiny Shioli crater in the Sea of Nectar, a lunar plain formed by old volcanic activity. The lander’s purpose is to quickly examine nearby rocks that may hold clues about the moon’s formation.
The moon’s surface is covered in craters and rocky debris from meteorites and other objects hit by spacecraft. Studying these rocks is like seeing into the moon, which is why scientists find them fascinating. Possible sources of more information on the formation of the moon include minerals and other characteristics of the rocks.
The majority of missions typically avoid landing close to the crater’s sloping, rocky landing zones, but JAXA thinks its lander is equipped with enough technology to land securely there. However, the Moon Sniper was aimed at a landing spot close to the tiny Shioli crater in the Sea of Nectar, a lunar plain formed by past volcanic activity that is located just south of the Sea of Tranquility, the location of Apollo 11’s 1969 landing.
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