Near an equatorial crater, the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (Slim) gently touched down on the lunar surface.
With this accomplishment, the Asian nation joined the US, the Soviet Union, China, and India as the only other nations to soft-land on an Earthly satellite.
But now, engineers are fighting to keep the mission alive.
The craft’s solar cells will not produce electricity for reasons that are fully understood at this time.
Because of this, Slim is solely dependent on its batteries, which will eventually run out. Upon doing so, the craft will become quiet. It won’t be able to communicate with Earth or receive commands.
Right now, engineers are setting priorities for their work.
They are removing photos from the craft and turning off the heaters. Additionally, they are retrieving data that will indicate the effectiveness of the landing software.
If Slim does go silent, Japanese space agency (Jaxa) officials will not give up on it right away. There’s always a chance that the solar cells’ orientation has changed to make it impossible for them to see the Sun.
According to the officials, Slim might resurrect when light angles on the Moon shift.
Hitoshi Kuninaka, vice president of Jaxa, responded in the affirmative when asked if Japan could legitimately claim a soft landing during a press conference.
“If powered descent wasn’t successful, then there would have been a collision with the surface at a very high speed and spacecraft function would have been completely lost,” he stated to reporters.
“But it is still sending data properly to us, which means our original objective of a soft landing was successful.”
Just prior to landing, Slim’s telemetry shows that it successfully ejected the two tiny rovers it was carrying.
The next two weeks would be dedicated to the craft’s study of the local geology, which is equipped with an infrared camera. It’s unclear how much of this investigation can be completed in the allotted time.
