Japan’s SLIM lunar lander stuck the landing—upside down

Here’s the good news. Japan’s space agency confirmed last week that its historic Smart Lander for Lunar Exploration (SLIM) successfully touched down with near-pinpoint precision.

The bad news? SLIM turned it upside down.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) confirmed the dizzying situation on Thursday, thanks to images it received from a pair of autonomous spacecraft dispatched by SLIM shortly before touchdown. But regardless of its status, JAXA project manager Shinichiro Saki gave the effort “full marks.”

“What we designed traveled all the way to the moon and took a snapshot of it. When I saw it, I almost fell over,” he said. Associated Press “We have demonstrated that we can land anywhere we want. We have opened the door to a new era.”

[Related: Japan makes history with its first uncrewed moon landing.]

Japan is now the fifth country to reach the moon’s surface, but the feat is distinguished by its precision. Previous lunar landers aimed at landing zones as wide as six miles, but SLIM lived up to its “Moon Sniper” nickname. After several days of analysis, JAXA confirmed that the spacecraft landed just barely 180 feet from its already impressive 330-foot-wide target. This was within the expectations of JAXA engineers. SLIM currently lives near the Shiori crater on the moon’s near side.

However, during the descent, officials confirmed that the lander’s main engine failed at an estimated 162 feet above ground. This loss of thrust made the touchdown a little rougher than planned, likely affecting the current inversion position. SLIM is always upside down, so the solar panels are tilted in the wrong direction. Without reliable access to solar energy, SLIM is essentially powerless, at least for the time being. JAXA officials believe there may still be a chance for the lander to return within days, once the moon reenters daytime orbit.

The lunar terrain taken by the Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan-2 was superimposed with images acquired by the SLIM navigation camera during HV2 (second hover) at an altitude of about 50 m. The two blue frames are images acquired during obstacle detection in HV2. The spacecraft will then begin obstacle avoidance maneuvers, and its pinpoint landing performance will be evaluated based on its positional accuracy. The positional accuracy during the first and second obstacle detection was approximately 3–4 m and 10 m, respectively. It is highly likely that the main engine was already affected by the loss of functionality when the second obstacle was detected. The SLIM footprint in the red frame is the safe landing zone that SLIM autonomously sets based on obstacle detection during HV2. Credit: Chandrayaan-2:ISRO/SLIM:JAXA

But it would be no surprise if SLIM is doomed to take an indefinite nap, as its mission has already provided researchers with its first batch of data. The lander’s two small unmanned vehicles, LEV-1 and LEV-2, sent home a record of the mothership’s landing along with 275 images.

SLIM represents perhaps one of JAXA’s greatest accomplishments in recent years. In 2003, the agency’s Hayabusa spacecraft began its two-year journey to the 1,000-foot-long asteroid Itokawa. Hayabusa took off again in 2005 and finally returned to Earth with a sample in 2010. This is a first for space exploration. JAXA repeated a similar mission Hayabusa 2returned from a visit to the asteroid Ryugu in 2020.

A victory on the moon will likely be a welcome morale boost for space enthusiasts in the country.In April last year, Japanese private company ispace White peach R The lander reached lunar orbit, but soon crashed during a descent attempt.

Source