HELSINKI — Japan’s SLIM moon lander has resumed operations more than a week after its imperfect yet historic lunar landing.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) confirmed contact had been reestablished with the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) spacecraft late Jan. 28. The development comes just days ahead of a likely mission-ending sunset.
The large SUV-sized spacecraft was forced to power down just two over hours after landing Jan. 19 due to its solar cell not generating electricity. SLIM finally powered up again as the position of the sun in the sky changed, finally illuminated SLIM’s solar cell.
The spacecraft suffered a malfunction during descent that resulted in an unintended attitude upon landing and solar panels facing away from the sun.
JAXA stated via X, formerly known as Twitter, that science observations were immediately started with SLIM’s multiband spectroscopic camera (MBC), adding 10-band observations were made. The agency imaged a feature of a rock dubbed “toy poodle” observed by the multi-band observation.
The first hints that SLIM had been revived came from Germany-based amateur radio satellite organization AMSAT-DL. Its Bochum observatory detected a signal later confirmed to be SLIM engaged in a downlink with ground stations.
The sun will set over Shioli crater early Eastern Jan. 31, meaning SLIM has limited time to charge its batteries and conduct science observations.
Neither SLIM nor its rovers carry radioisotope heater units. Thus they are not expected to survive the lunar nighttime, when temperatures…
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