Japan’s historic lunar lander SLIM powered down ahead of a cold lunar night that would likely end its mission, but not before capturing its final images and massive amounts of scientific data. Ta.
SLIM (short for “Smart Lander for Exploring the Moon”) touched down precisely on the rim of the Sioli crater. January 19thDespite landing nose down due to engine trouble. As a result, the spacecraft’s solar cells faced west and did not receive the expected levels of sunlight, resulting in an initially very short period of activity on the lunar surface.But Slim was triumphant. I woke up about 10 days after landing.the sun finally shone on the panels.
Related: Japan’s lunar lander “SLIM” takes pictures from the nose of the moon (image)
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency(JAXA), which operates SLIM, has spent the past few days scanning the nearby lunar surface with the spacecraft’s Multiband Camera (MBC) to study its composition.
MBC is designed to investigate olivine and other minerals by analyzing the light signature, or spectrum, of reflected sunlight. according to to the nonprofit Planetary Society.
JAXA’s SLIM account on X (formerly Twitter), Posted The agency said the final image taken by SLIM’s navigation camera on January 31, Japan time, confirmed that the spacecraft had entered hibernation, as expected.
Last night (1/31-2/1), I sent a command to turn #SLIM’s communicator back on just to be safe, but there was no response, and I confirmed that SLIM was in hibernation mode. This is the last scene of the moon taken by SLIM before dusk. #GoodAfterMoon #JAXA pic.twitter.com/V1iAUoxJFKFebruary 1, 2024
JAXA will wait for a lunar night of about 14.5 Earth days long before SLIM can be revived again, with favorable illumination during the second half of the next lunar day (starting around February 15th). It is necessary to wait until the temperature conditions are right. But for the spacecraft to wake up again, its electronics must survive the moon’s equatorial night. temperature It’s around -208 degrees Fahrenheit (-130 degrees Celsius).
But regardless of whether SLIM wakes up, this spacecraft accurate landingdeployed a pair of small rovers to demonstrate interoperability and obtain a wealth of scientific data.
SLIM’s X account too Posted Labeled images of MBC spectroscopic imaging targets. Various rocks and regoliths that have been studied are shown.
“Based on the vast amount of data we have obtained, we are proceeding with analyzes such as identifying rocks and estimating the chemical composition of minerals in order to solve the mystery of their origin. moon”, Google Machine Translation of JAXA, February 1st statement read.
“Scientific results will be announced as soon as they are available,” the statement added.