A NASA orbiter has Japan’s SLIM lunar lander on the lunar surface after its historic landing.
SLIM, or Smart Lander for researching the Moon, works through the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). It landed on the Moon in a precision lunar landing on January 19, making Japan the fifth country to make a comfortable landing on the lunar surface: India, China, the United States, and Russia (then the Soviet Union).
From its orbit 50 miles (80 km) above the moon’s surface, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) was able to see SLIM resting at its landing site. “Bright streaks on the left side of the image are rocky material ejected from the nearby, relatively young Shioli crater,” NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, which manages LRO, wrote in a statement.
Related: Japan’s SLIM lunar lander photographed on the moon, on its nose (image)
NASA photographs show SLIM’s landing site before and after the probe’s landing. One of the photographs, seen below, is a composition that appears in the before and after landing photographs. In turn, this allows us to highlight reflectance adjustments on the lunar surface, caused by the lander’s engine exhaust.
SLIM achieved its first goal of landing at a specific site with near-precise accuracy, landing 328 feet (100 meters) from its target despite ending up upside down due to engine failure during descent.
Due to its orientation, SLIM cannot use its solar panels to generate electricity, which means that the probe is completely dependent on its battery. On Monday, January 21, the lander’s battery dropped to 12% of its capacity, causing a shutdown force. “until a recovery operation can be restarted due to excessive downloading,” SLIM team members said on X.
“We’ve shown that you can land wherever you want. ” Japan’s SLIM lunar probe has achieved an accurate landing on the Moon, according to JAXA
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Still, JAXA scientists hope that if sunlight shines on the lander from the lunar west, SLIM’s solar panels could absorb enough sunlight to produce power and recover.
But it’s not all bad news. In addition to landing effectively, SLIM was able to deploy two mini-rovers that it took to the Moon, called EV-1 (“Lunar Excursion Vehicle” 1) and LEV-2. Both look as expected, and the ball-shaped LEV-2 is even capable of snapping a photo of its host upside down.
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Brett is curious about emerging aerospace technologies, alternative launch concepts, military space developments and uncrewed aircraft systems. Brett’s work has appeared on Scientific American, The War Zone, Popular Science, the History Channel, Science Discovery and more. Brett has English degrees from Clemson University and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. In his free time, Brett enjoys skywatching throughout the dark skies of the Appalachian mountains.
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