Beep, beep, beep?
There is a “possibility” that the Japanese Slim module, which made a historic moon landing on Saturday but encountered a problem with its solar panels, could be relaunched, the Japanese space agency Jaxa said on Monday.
“According to telemetry data, Slim's solar cells face west.
If sunlight hits the Moon from the west in the future, we believe it is possible to produce energy, and we are currently preparing for restoration,” Jaxa said on Twitter).
According to the telemetry data, SLIM's solar cells are facing west.
So if sunlight begins to shine on the lunar surface from the west, there is a possibility of generating power, and we are preparing for recovery.
#SLIM can operate with power only from the solar cells.
#JAXA
— 小型月着陸実証機SLIM (@SLIM_JAXA) January 22, 2024
The “Smart Lander for Investigating Moon” module makes Japan the fifth country in the world to have successfully placed a device on the lunar satellite.
The moon landing took place at 12:20 a.m. Saturday (Japanese time, i.e. 8:20 a.m. French time).
The machine, which had been orbiting the rocky star since the end of December, had begun its descent around twenty minutes earlier at a speed of around 1,700 m per second.
The small unmanned craft (2.4 m long, 1.7 m wide and 2.7 m high) was to land in a small crater less than 300 m in diameter called Shioli, to lead to the soil analyzes of rocks believed to come from the lunar mantle, the internal structure of the Earth's natural satellite, which is still very poorly understood.
A “large volume of data” received
Communications had been established but the module's solar cells were not producing power.
From Earth, the engineers responsible for the program cut off SLIM's heating to save its battery, which should be able to last "a few hours", according to Hitoshi Kuninaka, director of the research center, with 12% charge, assures Jaxa this Monday , and prioritized data transfer.
The decision was made to maintain the status quo, rather than launch risky measures, hoping that the sun would hit the solar panels again, and restore their functions.
“It takes 30 days for the solar angle to change on the Moon,” Kuninaka warned on Saturday.
“So when the direction of the sun changes and the light shines in a different direction, the light could end up hitting the solar cell.”
Slim sent data until 2:57 a.m. Japanese time, and the data recovered as soon as the moon landing was completed therefore seemed to show that the module's solar panels were oriented towards the west.
The two mini-rovers carried by SLIM were released normally, including a spherical probe called SORA-Q, barely larger than a tennis ball;
designed by the Aerospace Agency with toy giant Takara Tomy, it is capable of modifying its shape to move on the lunar surface.
A “large volume of data” has been received and a more in-depth summary will be given by the end of the week, the agency rejoices.
Japan is increasingly seeking to play a larger role in space, but the archipelago has encountered several recent setbacks.
In 2022, a Jaxa mini-probe, Omotenashi (“hospitality” in Japanese), which was on board the American Artemis 1 mission, experienced a fatal battery failure shortly after its ejection into space.
And in April 2023, a lunar lander from the young private Japanese company ispace crashed on the surface of the Moon, because it was unable to control the smooth descent stage.