2024-01-20 10:59:04
Tokyo (AFP) – Japan on Saturday became the fifth country to succeed in landing on the moon, but its space module faces the risk of running out of power soon due to a problem with its solar panels.
Published on: 01/20/2024 – 11:59
5 minutes
After a stunning twenty-minute descent, the Japanese Aerospace Agency (JAXA) announced that the SLIM module (which stands for “Intelligent Lunar Landing Vehicle”) landed at 00:20 on Saturday morning (15:20 GMT). Contact has been established with her.
But because the solar panels cannot function, the probe, nicknamed “Moon Sniper” for its ability to land accurately, will only have electricity for “hours,” warned Hitoshi Kuninaka, a JAXA official.
Kuninaka said that the panels may resume operation when the angle of the sun changes, while the team works to maximize the scientific results of the mission by transmitting the data obtained to Earth.
He explained in a press conference, “It is unlikely that the solar panels have malfunctioned. It is possible that they are not oriented in the direction originally expected.”
He pointed out, “If the landing had not been successful, the probe would have crashed at a very high speed. If that had been the case, it would have lost all its functions.” But “the data is sent to Earth.”
SLIM is one of many missions to the moon recently launched by countries and private companies. But so far, only the United States, the Soviet Union, China, and finally India have succeeded in landing on the moon.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida described the moon landing as “extremely good news,” but said he recognized the need to conduct “detailed analyzes” of the condition of the solar panels.
NASA head Bill Nelson sent “congratulations to Japan, which has become the fifth country in history to successfully land on the moon.”
“big success”
JAXA hopes to analyze the data obtained during the moon landing to determine whether the vehicle achieved its goal of landing within 100 meters of its target.
The Slim rover landed in a small crater less than 300 meters in diameter, called Shiuli, where it was scheduled to conduct surface analyses.
The Japanese Space Agency said that the two miniature vehicles carried by the “Slim” probe were launched normally, including a spherical probe called “SORA-Q”, which is barely larger than a tennis ball, and can adjust its shape to move on the lunar soil. It was developed by JAXA in partnership with Japanese toy giant Takara Tomy.
Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said that although the accuracy of the moon landing must be confirmed, “I think the mission was a great success.”
He explained to Agence France-Presse that several problems may be the reason behind the problem with the solar panels. “There might be a loose cable, a cable that’s connected incorrectly, or the lander might be in reverse and unable to see the sun for some reason,” McDowell said.
Technological challenge
More than 50 years following man’s first steps on the moon, an achievement achieved by the Americans in 1969, countries raced to it once more.
In addition to the United States and China, Russia also dreams of restoring the glories of the Soviet Union in the field of space, by uniting efforts in particular with China and India, which made the first landing on the moon last summer.
A photo published by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) on June 1, 2023 shows the “Slim” probe at the Tanegashima Center in Japan © Handout / Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)/AFP/Archive
The first two Japanese attempts in this field failed.
In 2022, it sought to land the “Omotenashi” (“Hospitality” in Japanese) vehicle on board the “Artemis 1” mission of the US Space Agency (NASA), but contact with the vehicle was lost due to a defect in its batteries following it was thrown into space.
In April 2023, the vehicle of the Japanese start-up company “Ispace” crashed on the surface of the moon, following it failed in the smooth landing phase.
Reaching the moon remains a major technological challenge even for the major space powers, as a lunar lander belonging to an American company was lost on Thursday, which had failed in its mission following suffering a fuel leak, and it was possible that it disintegrated upon entering the Earth’s atmosphere, according to what the “Astrobotics” company announced. “The startup I designed.
Hours later, Tuesday, the US Space Agency (NASA) announced that it had delayed the next two missions of its major program to return to the moon, “Artemis,” by regarding a year.
The “Artemis 2” mission, which carries four astronauts to orbit the moon without landing on its surface, has been postponed from the end of 2024 to September 2025.
As for “Artemis 3”, which is supposed to be the first mission to land astronauts on the surface of the moon since the end of the “Apollo” program in 1972, it was postponed from the end of 2025 to September 2026.
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