Japan successfully joined the exclusive club of lunar explorers on Saturday, January 19, as its Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) spacecraft touched down on the moon's surface, marking the country's maiden lunar landing. This milestone makes Japan the fifth nation in the world to accomplish such a feat.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced that SLIM had executed a soft landing on the lunar surface, a pivotal moment in the country's space exploration endeavors.
However, solar power issues threatened to cut short the nation’s mission to prove a "precision" landing technology and revitalise a space programme that has suffered setbacks, the Reuters reported.
JAXA said its SLIM landed the moon's surface at around 12:20 am (1520 GMT Friday), but its solar panels were not able to generate electricity, possibly because they are angled wrong.
JAXA prioritised the transfer of SLIM's data to earth as the probe relied only on its battery, which would last for "a few hours" despite "life-sustaining treatments" such as turning off its heater, Hitoshi Kuninaka, the head of JAXA's research centre, told a press conference.
JAXA will maintain the status quo rather than take risky actions and hopes a shift in the sunlight's angle will hit the panels in a way that can restore its functions, he added.
"It takes 30 days for the solar angle to change on the moon," Kuninaka said. "So when the solar direction changes, and the light shines from a different direction, the light could end up hitting the solar cell."
Signal from the SLIM was lost, data from NASA's Deep Space Network showed. It was not immediately clear whether the signal loss was temporary or a power-saving measure.
Referred to as the "moon sniper," the spacecraft was targeted to touch down within a proximity of 100 meters (328 feet) of its intended landing site.
"Looking at the trace data, SLIM most certainly achieved a landing with 100-metre accuracy," Kuninaka said. However, it will take up to a month to verify if SLIM has achieved the precision goals, JAXA said.
First Published: Jan 19, 2024 9:39 PM IST
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