Japanese SLIM lunar lander touches down on the Moon (Earth, solar, spacecraft)
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The craft seems to have succeeded in making a soft landing on the moon, as SLIM is currently sending and receiving data from its new home near Shioli crater on the lunar near-side, mission officials said in a televised press conference on Friday. However, the lander may only survive for a few hours there following an error with the lander's solar energy cells, which are not generating electricity as expected, the officials said.
Despite this setback, Japan joins the United States, Russia, China and India as the only nations to successfully land a spacecraft on the moon.
The Lunar Excursion Vehicle 2 (LEV-2) is a little metal sphere, not much larger than a tennis ball. Once on the moon, it will pop off the SLIM lander, and transform its two halves to traverse the fine regolith of the lunar surface.
The photograph was taken by part of SLIM's payload, the Lander-eye Viewfinder-2 (LEV-2) rover, also known as SORA-Q, and shows the probe on its head.
It's pretty cool though that the mini rovers were able to send back an image. The landing was notable for its accuracy. It touched down 55 metres from the intended location, and did so with only one engine operational.
Japan’s space agency said on Monday its SLIM moon lander has unexpectedly survived a freezing lunar night and re-established communication with the earth, more than a month after the spacecraft made a historic “pinpoint” touchdown on the moon.
Has that ever happened before? It might be a first. The lander was never designed to survive a lunar night.
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