The Japanese SLIM spacecraft managed to land on the lunar surface yesterday in a controlled launch, but its solar panels cannot generate electricity, possibly because they are at the wrong angle, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) reported yesterday. , which does not know the cause of the problem.
“SLIM now runs on battery only and we prioritize data transfer to Earth,” said Hitoshi Kuninaka, head of JAXA’s space laboratory. As explained by the officials of this agency, it will take up to a month to verify if the SLIM has achieved the goal of moving away with a precision of 100 meters with respect to the landing site. This was one of the objectives of this mission, which has made Japan the fifth country to reach the Moon: to verify the correct operation of this precision landing system.
This system is considered a powerful tool in the future exploration of the mountainous lunar poles, which are considered a potential source of oxygen, fuel and water, fundamental to establishing a permanent lunar base from which future expeditions to Mars depart. Until now the conventional accuracy was several kilometers.
The fact that those in charge of the Japanese mission prioritize downloading the data to be able to verify whether the launch was as precise as they wanted – the battery “will only last a few hours”, JAXA reported – and not solve the problem with the solar panels provides a sense of the importance of checking success or failure above any other mission purpose.
The intelligent lander to investigate the Moon landed on the lunar surface at 16:20 Spanish time, and shortly after JAXA interrupted the live broadcast. It became apparent that something was not quite right. The Japanese space agency cited a press conference at 6:10 p.m. (local time), in which it reported that communication had been established with the craft, that the latter was responding to all commands sent to it from the Earth and that all the systems – apart from the solar cell that must provide it with energy – were working correctly.
It was also confirmed that upon landing, SLIM successfully deployed two miniprobes: a vehicle as large as a microwave oven and a wheeled vehicle the size of a baseball, which would have taken photographs of the spacecraft, JAXA said.
Japan is increasingly aiming to play a bigger role in space and partner with the United States to counter China. Japan is also home to several private sector space companies, and JAXA aims to send an astronaut to the Moon as part of NASA’s Artemis program in the coming years.
But Japan’s space agency has recently faced multiple setbacks in rocket development, including the failure in March to launch its new flagship rocket, the H3, which was meant to match cost competitiveness against rocket suppliers commercial like SpaceX.