2024-01-22 07:37:31
Published22. January 2024, 08:37
Japanese probe on the Moon: Despite a problem with solar panels, the module might restart
Japan became the fifth country to have successfully landed on the Moon, following the United States, the Soviet Union, China and India.
This photo taken on June 1, 2023 and released by the Japan Space Agency (JAXA) shows the “Smart Lander for Investigating Moon” (SLIM) at the Tanegashima Space Center.
AFP
The Japanese space agency (Jaxa) announced on Monday that it had turned off the power supply to its Slim module less than three hours following its historic moon landing on Saturday, in order to save its batteries for a possible restart. There is a “possibility” that the Japanese Slim module, which encountered a solar panel problem, might be revived, Jaxa added.
“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,” the space agency said. “We were able to complete the transmission of technical data and images acquired during descent and on the lunar surface before power was cut off,” Jaxa said on social network data” had been received.
Japan on Saturday became the fifth country to have successfully landed on the Moon. After a breathtaking 20-minute descent, Jaxa announced that the SLIM module (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) had landed at 12:20 a.m. Saturday (Friday 3:20 p.m. GMT) and that communication with it had been established.
But due to a lack of solar panels in service, the machine, nicknamed “Moon Sniper” for its ability to land with precision, only had electricity for “several hours,” warned Hitoshi Kuninaka, one of those responsible for the Jaxa. It is possible that the panels will work once more when the angle of the sun changes, she said, while the team worked to maximize the scientific results of the mission by transmitting the data obtained to Earth.
SLIM is one of many lunar missions launched recently by countries and private companies. But so far, only the United States, the Soviet Union, China and more recently India have succeeded in landing on the Moon.
“Partnership in the cosmos”
The head of NASA, the American space agency, Bill Nelson, sent his “congratulations (to Japan) which has become the fifth country in history to successfully land on the Moon”. “We value our partnership in the cosmos and our ongoing collaboration,” he added.
Jaxa hopes to analyze the data acquired during the moon landing to determine whether the craft achieved its objective of landing within 100 meters of its target. SLIM landed in a small crater less than 300 meters in diameter, called Shioli, from where it was to carry out analyzes on the ground. The two mini-rovers carried by SLIM were released normally, Jaxa said, including a spherical probe called SORA-Q, barely larger than a tennis ball, and capable of modifying its shape to move on the lunar soil. It was developed by Jaxa, in partnership with the Japanese toy giant Takara Tomy.
Although the accuracy of the moon landing must be confirmed, “I think the mission is a great success,” said Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
Technological challenge
More than 50 years following the first steps by humans on the Moon – the Americans in 1969 – it has once once more become the subject of a global race. In addition to the United States and China, Russia also dreams of reconnecting with the space glory of the USSR, by joining forces in particular with China and India, which made its first moon landing last summer.
Japan’s first two attempts to land on the moon went wrong. In 2022, a Jaxa probe, Omotenashi, on board the American Artemis 1 mission, experienced a fatal battery failure shortly following 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, having missed the gentle descent stage.
(afp)
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