More than a week after achieving an exceptionally accurate lunar landing, Japan’s SLIM spacecraft has restored power, according to the space agency’s announcement on Monday. However, the spacecraft’s power was cut off due to an erroneous angle of its solar panels.
A JAXA spokeswoman stated that the agency resumed contact with its Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) late on Sunday, some nine days after the probe’s landing made Japan the fifth nation to land a spacecraft on the moon.
According to JAXA, the probe was probably able to produce electricity because of a shift in the direction of the sun.
The agency also stated that SLIM has begun its operations to use its multi-band spectral camera to analyze the composition of olivine rocks on the lunar surface in an effort to find out more about the moon’s formation.
On January 20, SLIM landed on the moon in a crater close to the lunar equator, 55 meters (180 feet) from its intended landing site. According to JAXA, the mission demonstrated a breakthrough in vision-based “pinpoint” landing, a technique that has great potential for future exploration of the mountainous lunar poles, which are thought to have potential resources of oxygen, fuel, and water.
Unknown causes caused SLIM to lose the thrust of one of its two main engines just before touchdown, causing it to veer a few dozen meters off course. In a photo obtained by a baseball-sized wheeled rover it launched, the lander looked to have collapsed with its engine pointing upward, but it had stopped safely on a moderate slope.
Because of the relocation, the probe’s solar panels faced westward and were unable to provide electricity right away. After two hours and thirty-seven minutes of landing, JAXA manually disconnected SLIM’s depleting battery in order to finish transmitting the lander’s data to Earth.
The exact date that SLIM will cease operations on the moon is unknown, however JAXA has stated in the past that the lander was not intended to last a lunar night. On Thursday, the next lunar night starts.
