The “Moon Sniper” mission was targeting a crater where the lunar mantle would be exposed.
Japan has turned off its lunar lander nearly three hours after a historic landing to allow for possible recovery of the craft when the sun hits its solar panels, the space agency announced Monday.
With its unmanned Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) mission, nicknamed “Moon Sniper” because of the machine’s precision landing capabilities, Japan became the fifth country to achieve a soft moon landing.
But after landing at 12:20 a.m. Saturday (Friday 1520 GMT), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) could not confirm that the light craft’s solar batteries were generating electricity.
Before turning off the lander remotely, mission control was able to receive technical data and images of its descent and the lunar surface.
“We are relieved and starting to get excited after confirming that a lot of data has been obtained,” JAXA said in a statement on Monday, adding that “according to telemetry data, SLIM’s solar cells are oriented toward the west”.
“If sunlight hits the Moon from the west in the future, we believe there is a possibility of electricity generation, and we are currently preparing to restore it,” he said.
SLIM is one of several new lunar missions launched by governments and private companies, 50 years after the first human moon landing.
Crash landings and communications failures are commonplace, and only four other countries have successfully made it to the Moon: the United States, the Soviet Union, China, and, most recently, India.
JAXA said it disconnected SLIM’s battery just before 3 a.m. (1800 GMT Friday), when it had 12 percent power remaining, “in order to avoid a situation where restarting (the lander) would be hindered.”
SLIM is one of several new lunar missions launched by governments and private companies.
Detached probes
The agency is currently conducting a detailed analysis of the data, to help determine whether the craft achieved its goal of arriving within 100 meters (330 feet) of its intended landing point.
The mission was targeting a crater where the lunar mantle, the typically deep inner layer beneath its crust, would be exposed on the surface.
By analyzing the rocks, JAXA had hoped to shed light on the mystery of the Moon’s possible water resources, essential for one day building bases there that would serve as possible stopovers on the road to Mars.
Two probes successfully detached, one with a transmitter and the other designed to travel across the lunar surface and transmit images to Earth.
This shape-shifting mini-rover, slightly larger than a tennis ball, was co-developed by the company behind Transformer toys.
JAXA said Monday it was preparing to make further announcements this week on the mission results and the status of the SLIM craft.
Although not everything went as planned, “we may be able to produce many results and we are happy that the landing was successful,” the statement said.
Previous Japanese lunar missions have failed twice: one public and one private.
In 2022, the country unsuccessfully sent a lunar probe named Omotenashi as part of the American Artemis 1 mission.
In April, Japanese startup ispace unsuccessfully attempted to become the first private company to land on the Moon, losing communication with its craft after what it described as a “hard landing.”
© 2024 AFP
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