Jaxa produced this render of Slim to show the awkward landing orientation that pointed the solar cells away from the Sun
Japan's Moon lander has survived the harsh lunar night, the sunless and freezing equivalent to two Earth weeks.
"Last night, a command was sent to #SLIM and a response received," national space agency Jaxa said on X.
The craft was put into sleep mode after an awkward landing in January left its solar panels facing the wrong way and unable to generate power.
A change in sunlight direction later allowed it to send pictures back but it shut down again as lunar night fell.
Jaxa said at the time that Slim (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) was not designed for the harsh lunar nights.
It said it planned to try to operate again from mid-February, when the Sun would shine again on Slim's solar cells.
"The news that SLIM has rebooted itself after the cold lunar night is significant," said Dr Simeon Barber from the UK's Open University. "Surviving lunar night is one of the key technological challenges to be overcome if we are to establish long-lived robotic or human missions on the Moon."
Dr Barber explained that Slim landed near the Moon's equator, where the lunar surface reaches more than 100C at noon, but then plunges to -130C during the lunar night.
Jaxa said that communication with the lander was terminated after a short time - it was lunar midday, meaning the temperature of the communications equipment was very high.
But it posted the following picture on X, which it said was taken from the lander while it was back in action.
Jaxa said preparations were being made to resume operations when instrument temperatures had cooled sufficiently.
During its previous brief period of re-awakening, Slim was able to study its surroundings in detail and transmit new images to Earth.
Jaxa will be hoping that having survived the lunar night it will be able to continue its work.
Dr Barber said that future landers will need so-called 'active' thermal control - that is the ability to dissipate heat generated on board during the daytime, and then to change into a heat-conserving mode at night to prevent things getting too cold.
"The fact that Slim survived without such a complex design might give us clues as to how electronics really behaves on the Moon," he said. "Plus, we can look forward to more science from Slim!"
The landing in January made Jaxa only the fifth national space agency to achieve a soft touchdown on the Moon - after the US, the former Soviet Union, China and India.
Also in a post on X, Jaxa congratulated the team behind a US spacecraft, the Odysseus Moon lander, for making history on Thursday by becoming the first ever privately built and operated robot to complete a soft lunar touchdown.
Like Slim, it also landed awkwardly. Controllers at the operating company, Intuitive Machines, think their robot tipped on to its side at the moment of touchdown. Odysseus does, however, appear still to be functional and is communicating with Earth.
No pictures from the Odysseus mission at the surface have yet been released.
Quelle: BBC
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Japan’s SLIM moon lander stages unexpected revival after lunar night
Japan's SLIM moon lander imaged by small rover LEV-2. Credit: JAXA/Takara Tomy/Sony Group Corporation/Doshisha University
HELSINKI — Japan’s space agency made contact with its SLIM moon lander Sunday, despite the spacecraft not being expected to function after lunar night.
Contact with the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) spacecraft was reestablished on Sunday, Feb. 25, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced via its dedicated SLIM account on X, formerly known as Twitter, early Feb. 26.
The mission team received telemetry from SLIM around 5:00 a.m. Eastern (1000 UTC). The temperature of the communication equipment was extremely high, according to JAXA, due to the sun being high over the landing area. Communication was terminated after only a short period of time, JAXA stated.
The SLIM team is however now preparing to conduct observations with SLIM’s multiband spectroscopic camera (MBC) later in the lunar day. MBC is designed to ascertain the composition of the lunar surface and could provide insights into the moon’s history. Sunset over Shioli crater, on the rim of which SLIM landed, will occur Feb. 29.
SLIM was not designed to survive the deep cold of lunar night. Temperatures fall below minus 130 Celsius during the roughly 14-Earth-day lunar nighttime, damaging electronics. Other spacecraft have used radioisotope heater units to provide heating during lunar nights to allow prolonged operations.
The spacecraft—also referred to as “Moon Sniper” for its objective of making a precise landing—made its historic landing Jan. 19.
That feat saw the country join an exclusive club of the United States, the former Soviet Union, China and India in making successful robotic lunar soft landings. Intuitive Machines has since become the first private entity to land on the moon. The Nova-C lander, named Odysseus, likely tipped over on its side when landing, however.
SLIM’s operations on the surface have been limited due to the unintended attitude of the spacecraft after landing.
Shinichiro Sakai, SLIM project manager, provided an update to the Space Development and Utilization Subcommittee of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Feb. 26 Japan time.
Sakai reiterated that the landing was hampered by the failure of one of two engines with around 50 meters of descent remaining. This resulted in uncontrolled lateral movement and the lander ending up on its nose, and the main engine pointing upwards.
An image (right) showing a thruster nozzle (circled in red) falling free of the SLIM spacecraft during the final stages of descent onto the moon. Credit: JAXA
SLIM was planned to tip onto its side, cushioned by five crushable, 3D-printed aluminum lattice landing legs. Instead, with SLIM’s solar cell facing westwards, away from the sun, the spacecraft was forced to power down just over two hours after landing Jan. 19. Communication with the spacecraft was established on the night of January 28th once sufficient power was obtained from the solar cells.
Sakai said the team is currently conducting a detailed investigation into the cause of the engine malfunction. The team will also consider future countermeasures. SLIM’s precision landing technology could allow greater science returns for future missions, allowing teams to target very specific locations of interest instead of general areas.
SLIM also carried a pair of small, innovative rovers which it successfully deployed onto the moon in the final stages of descent. The 2.1-kilogram Lunar Excursion Vehicle 1 (LEV-1) uses a hopping mechanism, while LEV-2 is a 0.25-kg, baseball-sized, spherical rover.
LEV-1 transmitted directly to Earth an image of SLIM taken by LEV-2, demonstrating inter-robot radio wave data transmission and revealing the landing state of the main spacecraft. LEV-1 performed seven autonomous hops across 107 minutes, according to Sakai’s presentation.
Quelle: SN
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Update: 28.02.2024
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It's alive! JAXA's SLIM moon lander sends home new photos after surviving frigid lunar night
'Yesterday I decided to communicate for a while and then take a break again.'
The SLIM moon lander woke up from hibernation and released new imagery of its landing site on the rim of Shioli crater on Feb. 26, 2024.(Image credit: JAXA)
Japan's SLIM lander is alive after a long sleep on the moon.
SLIM, short for "Smart Lander for Investigating Moon," responded to a command from Earth after hibernating for nearly a month. Part of that downtime fell during the cold of the moon's two-week night, mission officials announced early Monday (Feb. 26) on X, formerly Twitter.
"Last night, a command was sent to #SLIM and a response received, confirming that the spacecraft has made it through the lunar night and maintained communication capabilities," wrote officials with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in English. The electronics were operational despite surface temperatures being at 212 Fahrenheit (100 Celsius), the team wrote in Japanese in another post machine-translated by Google.
"If we continue to communicate, things will get even hotter, so yesterday I decided to communicate for a while and then take a break again," JAXA's post continued, appearing to be playfully impersonating the lander.
The lander is not only awake, but continuing to gather a bit of science. Fresh mission imagery on the mission's Japanese-language account shows a new zone of the moon "which was not visible last time", according to a Google machine translation of the X post. Images were taken using the mission's navigation camera, SLIM officials wrote in another post, although the team plans to only make contact again when local temperatures have fallen to safer levels.
It's been a wild ride for SLIM, ever since it made a precise touchdown on the rim of Shioli crater on Jan. 19. The lander ended up upside-down due to engine trouble, but fortunately its solar panels are still receiving energy from the sun, if at a reduced level. Facing westward, the reduced sunlight caused the mission to shut down shortly after landing, before reviving nearly 10 days later (Jan. 29) for a brief couple of days of operations that lasted until Feb. 1.
JAXA made the most of the brief operations time, scouting around the landing site using the spacecraft's Multi-Band Camera (MBC) in search of olivine and other minerals. It also photographed numerous pictures of rocks, which officials imaginatively named after dogs to indicate their relative sizes.
But the lunar night, which is roughly 14.5 Earth days long, saw no sunlight reach the lander at all. Lunar daytime hit the region around Feb. 15, but SLIM's unfavorable landing position meant that not enough sunlight reached the lander until this weekend.
The remarkable recovery shows that its electronics survived equatorial lunar nighttime temperatures of around minus 208 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 130 degrees Celsius).
SLIM has met its main and extended mission objectives of making a precision landing, sending two small rovers onto the surface for their own operations, and picking up science data in the surrounding area.
Quelle: SC
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Update: 3.03.2024
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Japan SLIM moon lander put to sleep after surviving lunar night
An image of Japan's lunar lander and the moon's surface captured by SORA-Q, which was successfully released before the craft's touchdown on Jan. 25. | JAXA / TOMY / SONY / DOSHISHA UNIVERSITY / VIA AFP-JIJI
Japan's moon lander has been put back to sleep after it surprisingly survived the freezing, two-week lunar night, the country's space agency said, with another operation attempt scheduled for later this month.
As the sun's angle shifted, it came back to life for two days and carried out scientific observations of a crater with a high-spec camera.
This week, the SLIM probe, which was "not designed for the harsh lunar nights," when the temperature plunges to minus 133 degrees, produced another surprise by waking up after two weeks.
"SLIM has gone to sleep again as the sun set after 3 a.m. (Japan Time) on March 1," the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said on X, formerly Twitter, on Friday, alongside an image of the rocky lunar surface captured by the probe.
"Although the likelihood of failure will increase due to the severe temperature cycles, we will attempt SLIM operation again when the sunlight comes back in late March," JAXA said.
The lander sent its final image on Thursday before its power banks depleted.
SLIM, dubbed the "Moon Sniper" for its precision landing technology, touched down within its target landing zone on Jan. 20.
The feat was a win for Japan's space program after a string of recent failures, making the nation only the fifth to achieve a "soft landing" on the moon, after the United States, the Soviet Union, China and India.
The aim of the mission is to examine a part of the moon's mantle — the usually deep inner layer beneath its crust — that is believed to be accessible.
NASA is planning to return astronauts to the moon later this decade.
The U.S., along with international partners, wants to eventually develop long-term habitats in the region, harvesting polar ice for drinking water — and for rocket fuel for eventual onward voyages to Mars.
Quelle: The Japan Times
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Update: 28.03.2024
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Japan moon probe survives second lunar night, JAXA says
Japan's unmanned moon lander woke up after surviving a second frigid, two-week lunar night and transmitted new images back to Earth, the country's space agency said Thursday.
"We received a response from SLIM last night and confirmed that SLIM had successfully completed its second overnight," the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said in a post on the official X account for its Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) probe.
"Since the sun was still high in the sky last night and the equipment was still hot, we recorded images of the usual scenery with the navigational camera, among other activities, for a short period of time," it added.
A black-and-white photo of the rocky surface of a crater accompanied the post on X.
The SLIM lander touched down in January at a wonky angle that left its solar panels facing the wrong way.
Around three hours after the landing — which made Japan only the fifth nation to touch down on the Moon — JAXA decided to switch SLIM off with 12% power remaining to allow for a possible resumption later on.
As the sun's angle shifted, the probe came back to life in late January for two days and carried out scientific observations of a crater with a high-spec camera.
But the spacecraft was not designed for the freezing, fortnightlong lunar nights, when the temperature plunges to minus 133 degrees.
So space agency scientists had cause for celebration when it was successfully revived in late February after its first lunar night.
JAXA has dubbed SLIM the "Moon Sniper" for its precision landing technology.
The aim of the mission is to examine a part of the moon's mantle — the usually deep inner layer beneath its crust — that is believed to be accessible.
Thursday's news came after an uncrewed American lander called Odysseus — the first private spaceship to successfully land on the moon — was unable to wake up, its manufacturer said on Saturday, even after its solar panels were projected to receive enough sunlight to turn on its radio.
Quelle: The Japan Times
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Update: 25.04.2024
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Japan Moon probe survives 3rd lunar night
Japan's Moon lander woke up for a third time after its main functions survived another frigid two-week lunar night, the country's space agency said Wednesday.
The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM), dubbed the "Moon Sniper" for its landing precision, touched down in January -- making Japan only the fifth nation to achieve a soft lunar landing.
But the unmanned lightweight spacecraft, carrying a mini-rover that moves like a turtle, landed at a wonky angle that left its solar panels facing the wrong way.
Defying pessimistic predictions, the probe was revived in late February once the lunar night, which lasts about 14 Earth days, came to an end.
Despite facing temperatures as low as -130 degrees Celsius (-200 degrees Fahrenheit), it repeated the feat late last month and transmitted new images back to Earth.
On Wednesday, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said it had succeeded again in communicating with the probe after it woke up for the third time.
On X, formerly Twitter, it posted a new image of the Moon's surface that it had received from the lander.
"SLIM has kept its main functions after surviving three nights," said JAXA, which previously said the spacecraft was not designed for the harsh lunar nights.
"We will continue checking the status of SLIM carefully, and make clear which parts are prone to deterioration and which parts are less prone to deterioration, depending on the Moon's environment in the daytime and at night," JAXA said.
The probe's mission aims to examine a part of the Moon's mantle -- the usually deep inner layer beneath its crust -- believed to be accessible at the crater where it landed.
Quelle: SD
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Update: 3.06.2024
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The cold lunar night may have finally swallowed Japan's SLIM moon lander
The space agency will try to reestablish contact with the lander again next month.
SLIM as seen by LEV-2 on the moon after landing on its nose.(Image credit: JAXA)
Japan's Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) mission failed to respond to signals sent over the last few days — but all hope is not lost for the tenacious lunar lander.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) attempted to send signals to SLIM on Friday and Saturday (May 24 and May 25), but was met with no response. A final attempt to reestablish contact was made on Monday evening (May 27) to no avail, marking a close to this month’s operations, the space agency announced on SLIM’s official X account.
SLIM, designed to demonstrate accurate lunar landing techniques, touched down on the moon’s surface on Jan. 20. Until now, JAXA has had successful monthly check-ins with the lander in February, March, and April — the probe managed to survive a shocking three frigid lunar nights. Usually, spacecraft can't even survive one of these two-week periods of cold isolation. Still, the space agency plans to try contacting SLIM again next month when the sun returns to the landing site, in hopes that the lander will reboot with sufficient solar power, the Japan Times reported.
This is not the first challenge encountered by the SLIM mission. During its landing, one of SLIM's engine nozzles fell off. While the spacecraft survived the trip — and accomplished its primary goal to soft land within 100 meters (328 feet) of its target landing site — the loss of thrust caused it to land with its solar panels facing away from the lunar morning sun, meaning they would be exposed to less sunlight and thus generate less electricity.
However, by late January, SLIM regained power and was able to resume operations, including sending a panoramic image of its landing site and other data back to Earth.
In its short time on the moon, the SLIM mission has already revealed new insights about the moon's surface, including evidence of the mineral olivine — the main component of Earth's upper mantle.
Olivine is also believed to be the main component of the lunar mantle, which makes up 90% of the moon's mass. This finding has implications for better understanding the moon's origin and may support the belief that it formed from debris left behind after Earth collided with another celestial body, according to the Japan Times.
"Further examination is required to determine whether the moon's olivineactually originated from the Earth's mantle," Kazuto Saiki, a professor at Ritsumeikan University, said during a Japan Geoscience Union meeting in Chiba Prefecture on May 27, according to the Japan Times. "But the presence of olivine has been confirmed."
SLIM represents a new generation of low-cost lunar landers that rely solely on solar cells instead of radioisotope heater units. As a result, the spacecraft was expected to have a shorter operational lifespan and to struggle during cold lunar nights, which extend up to 14 Earth days, with temperatures as low as -274 degrees F (-170° C).
"SLIM has already transmitted far more valuable data than we had ever anticipated prior to launch," JAXA said in the post on X. "We will continue our recovery efforts to keep it active for as long as possible."
Quelle: SC
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Update: 31.07.2024
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NASA's Moon-orbiting spacecraft has beamed a laser to Japan's SLIM lander on the Moon, and received a return signal
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft has now twice sent a laser pulse to a retroreflector on the Japanese SLIM lander on the Moon, and received a return signal.
Quite a feat, considering the retroreflector is about 2-inches wide and the orbiter is roughly 50km (30 miles) from the lunar surface.
The successful transmission and return between the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and JAXA's (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) SLIM lander shows there is potential for the technique to help guide future astronauts to the surface of the Moon in the dark, or reveal the locations of lunar spacecraft to crewed and uncrewed landing missions.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter passed 44 miles (70km) above the SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) twice on 24 May 2024.
As it did so, it used its laser altimeter instrument to beam a laser to a retroreflector - about the size of a cookie, says NASA - that's attached to SLIM.
The orbiter had done this two times before and not received a return transmission from the retroreflector, but on both these two attempts, it worked.
Image of the SLIM lander on the surface of the Moon, captured by the Lev-1 rover. Credit: JAXA
Solving SLIM's retroreflector problem
Ideally, a retroreflector would be on top of a lander, giving any orbiting spacecraft an optimal chance of making contact.
With SLIM on its side, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter had struggled to receive a return transmission from the retroreflector.
The Lunar Reconnaissance team worked with JAXA to determine the location and orientation of SLIM.
NASA engineers calculated the moment that LRO’s orbit trajectory would provide the best chance of reaching SLIM’s retroreflector with its laser beams.
"LRO’s altimeter wasn’t built for this type of application, so the chances of pinpointing a tiny retroreflector on the Moon’s surface are already low," says Xiaoli Sun, who led the team that built SLIM’s retroreflector at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, as part of a partnership between NASA and JAXA.
"For the LRO team to have reached a retroreflector that faces sideways, instead of the sky, shows that these little devices are incredibly resilient."
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter had already exchanged signals with India's Vikrim lander. Credit: ISRO
Why use retroreflectors on the Moon?
The retroreflector, called a Laser Retroreflector Array, is one of the six that NASA has sent to the Moon on private and public landers, and it's the second to bounce a signal back to the orbiter's altimeter.
The first was on 12 December 2023, when LRO transmitted to the Indian Space Research Organisation's Vikram lander.
LRO has since exchanged laser transmissions with Vikram lander three more times, NASA says.
The retroreflectors are about 2 inches wide and do not require any power or maintenance, NASA says, meaning they can last on the surface of the Moon potentially for decades, providing beacons that can be used for navigation.
They could, for example, help future astronauts such as the Artemis crews land on the Moon.
The retroreflectors could also help crewed and uncrewed spacecraft land near probes, rovers and other instruments on the lunar surface.
Quelle: BBC
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Update: 27.08.2024
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Conclusion of Lunar Activities of the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM)
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) concluded operations of the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) on the lunar surface at 22:40 (JST), on August 23, after being unable to establish communication with the spacecraft during the operational periods from May to July*, following the last contact on April 28, 2024.
SLIM was launched onboard the H-IIA Launch Vehicle No.47 (H-IIA F47) on September 7, 2023 from the Tanegashima Space Center and achieved Japan's first Moon soft landing on January 20, 2024. The landing precision was evaluated with a position error of approximately 10 meters from the target point, confirming the world's first successful pinpoint landing. In addition, the Multi-Band Camera (MBC) successfully performed spectral observations in 10 wavelength bands on 10 rocks, exceeding initial expectations. Further, despite not being part of the original mission plan, the spacecraft was confirmed to survive three lunar nights and remained operational, demonstrating results that surpassed initial goals.
A detailed summary of SLIM's achievements will be compiled and reported separately in due course.
We extend our deepest gratitude to all parties involved in the development and operation of SLIM for their cooperation and support, as well as all those who encouraged the mission.
Quelle: JAXA
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JAXA Ends Operations of SLIM Lunar Lander
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, said Monday that it ended operations of its Small Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, on Friday after determining that the probe was no longer functioning as it had not responded since late May.
SLIM landed near the Shioli crater in Mare Nectaris, or the Sea of Nectar, on the moon in the early hours of Jan. 20, becoming the first Japanese probe to successfully touch down on the moon.
The probe achieved its primary goal of a so-called pinpoint landing, or touching down on a spot within 100 meters of its target. However, one of its engines was damaged just before touchdown, causing it to land at an unexpected angle and rendering it unable to generate power with its solar cells. It was taken offline about two and a half hours later.
Still, the probe resumed operations on Jan. 28 after the direction of the sun changed. It took a picture of itself using two small rovers and transmitted the image to Earth. It also photographed rocks on the moon with a spectroscopic camera and found the presence of the mineral olivine, possibly a clue to the moon's origin.
SLIM operations were then halted on Jan. 31 as night fell at the landing spot. Despite not being designed to withstand the moon's nighttime temperatures of minus 170 degrees Celsius, the probe came back online in late February when sunlight returned to the landing site. More images were captured and transmitted successfully.
