2024-03-02 06:36:22
The Japanese SLIM probe, placed on the Moon since the end of January, has been put back into sleep pending further reactivation during the month, the Japanese space agency Jaxa announced on Saturday.
“SLIM was put back to sleep following sunset at 3:00 a.m. on March 1,” or 6:00 p.m. GMT on February 29, Jaxa reported on X.
The probe was able to be reactivated on February 26 following surviving two weeks of lunar night, despite the fact that it had landed at an angle, preventing its photovoltaic cells from replenishing sunlight.
“Although the risk of failure increases due to significant temperature variations, we will try to reactivate SLIM once more when light returns” in March, the agency added on Saturday.
The SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) module successfully landed on the moon on January 20 55 m from its initial target, i.e. a very high degree of precision, making Japan the fifth country to successfully land on the natural satellite of the Earth following the United States, the USSR, China and India.
But due to a motor problem in the last tens of meters of its descent, SLIM landed at an angle, depriving its west-facing photovoltaic cells of sunlight.
SLIM landed in a small crater less than 300 meters in diameter, called Shioli. The machine was able to land its two mini-rovers normally, supposed to carry out analyzes of rocks coming from the internal structure of the Moon (the lunar mantle), which is still very poorly understood.
On Thursday, another probe, Odysseus, operated by the American company Intuitive Machines, similarly landed on the Moon, a first for a private company.
Also askew, it was also put to sleep, its promoters also hoping to be able to reactivate it following the lunar night.
Odysseus is the probe that landed furthest south on the Moon, an area that is of particular interest to the great powers, because there is water there in the form of ice.
NASA ultimately wants to send its astronauts there, as part of its Artemis missions.
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