2024-02-01 11:34:00
The SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) module successfully landed on the moon 55 meters from its target on January 20, a very high degree of precision, making Japan the fifth country to successfully land on the Earth’s natural satellite. following the United States, the USSR, China and India.
But due to a motor problem at the last moment, SLIM had landed at an angle and its photovoltaic cells were not receiving sunlight, which forced Jaxa to initially deactivate it.
With the sun’s angle changing, the small craft came back to life for two days this week and began scientific observations of moon rocks.
“After completing these operations on January 30 and 31, SLIM entered a two-week rest period during the long lunar night,” Jaxa said on the social network X (formerly Twitter).
“Although SLIM was not designed for harsh lunar nights, we plan to try to make it work once more starting in mid-February, when the sun shines once more on SLIM’s photovoltaic cells,” he said. she added.
Jaxa said it sent a command to the probe “just in case”, but “in the absence of a response, we confirmed that SLIM was dormant.”
SLIM landed in a crater less than 300 meters in diameter, called Shioli, and before being shut down was able to land normally its two mini-rovers, supposed to carry out analyzes of rocks coming from the internal structure of the Moon, still very poorly known.
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