Japan Makes History With Tense, Successful Moon Landing
upstart writes:
Japan makes history with tense, successful moon landing:
Japan's SLIM "Moon Sniper" spacecraft made a successful lunar landing Friday, making the country just the fifth to robotically land on the moon.
The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) spacecraft began its descent from a 15-kilometer perilune shortly after 10:00 a.m. Eastern, Jan. 19 (1500 UTC), decelerating from a speed of around 1,700 meters per second.
SLIM appeared to have successfully touched down at 10:20 a.m. (1520 UTC), during a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) livestream of the event. It was not however immediately clear if the landing was successful, with the livestream ending inconclusively. A wait of more than an hour followed for clarification and confirmation.
During the silence from JAXA, NASA's Deep Space Network appeared to show signals from both SLIM and the Lunar Excursion Vehicle 1 (LEV-1)-a small rover accompanying SLIM and ejected onto the surface at an altitude of two meters-being received in Madrid. Amateur tracking stations meanwhile reported signals from both SLIM and LEV-1.
JAXA confirmed landing success during a press conference just under two hours after the landing occurred. However the spacecraft's solar cells were not generating electricity. The reason for the solar cell issue was not immediately known, but spacecraft orientation-suggesting the lander may have rolled-is consider a possibility. SLIM is currently working on battery power.
"We believe that the soft landing itself was successful," a JAXA official said, stating that the spacecraft had survived the landing and was sending data.
Teams are working to maximize data gathering and science output. LEV-1 and another rover, LEV-2, were also confirmed to have separated successfully and operating. JAXA will said it will hold another press conference in the following week.
Five crushable, 3D-printed aluminum lattice landing legs helped the lander absorb the impact of touchdown on the lunar surface.
The mission was primarily aiming to demonstrate precise landing technology, allowing the spacecraft to set down within 100 meters of a target point. SLIM was targeting a landing on the sloped rim inside the 300-meters-wide Shioli crater.
While the landing was confirmed successful, it will take up to a month to confirm the success or failure of the "pinpoint" landing. The accuracy will be assessed with observations from lunar orbit.
An accurate landing is not just an engineering feat, but one that could enable greater science returns.
"The SLIM mission, with its precision landing system, hopefully marks a more successful year of lunar landings by robotic explorers," Katherine Joy, a Reader in Earth Sciences at the University of Manchester, told SpaceNews.
"Touching down in just the right spot is key to targeting really interesting lunar locations that can help us test key science questions about the evolution of the Moon and where we want to explore to assess possible lunar resources."
[...] SLIM also carried a pair of small, innovative rovers with it to the moon. Lunar Excursion Vehicle 1 (LEV-1) uses a hopping mechanism, while LEV-2 is a baseball-sized, spherical rover. Both carry cameras and science payloads.
SLIM launched Sept. 6, 2023, and completed a looping, 110-day voyage to the moon Dec. 25, when the spacecraft entered lunar orbit. The flight profile saved the spacecraft propellant and allowed for a higher science payload mass.
The spacecraft trimmed its orbit to a circular, 600-kilometer polar orbit Jan. 14 in preparation for the landing attempt.
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