Japan has become the fifth country to soft-land a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon, but engineers are assessing an issue with its power system.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) spacecraft touched down as planned at 10:20 a.m. EST on Jan. 19. A live webcast of the landing ended before details were available. JAXA later said it was assessing an issue with the SLIM’s solar cells, which were not generating electricity. The spacecraft was operating on battery power.
SLIM was launched on Sept. 6 as a secondary payload aboard an H-IIA rocket that carried an X-ray telescope into orbit. The SLIM reached lunar orbit on Dec. 25.
Using a pair of hydrazine-fueled engines, the spacecraft dropped out of orbit to begin a 15-km descent to the surface.
The SLIM paused twice during the 20-min. descent, at 500 meters and 50 meters, before touching down near a 900-ft. crater named Shioli in the Sea of Nectar on the Moon’s near side.
Japan joins the Soviet Union, U.S., China and India in landing spacecraft on the Moon. Several other spacecraft, including Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander, have failed.
The Peregrine re-entered Earth’s atmosphere on Jan. 18. A Russian lander crashed into the Moon in August, and India’s first lunar lander failed in 2019. A private Israeli effort in 2019 also failed.
During the descent, the SLIM deployed two small rovers, Lunar Excursion Vehicle-1 and -2, which made independent landings.
The SLIM is designed to validate technologies for precision landings for future lunar missions. It aimed to achieve a landing accuracy of around 328 ft.
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