HELSINKI — Japan’s SLIM lander achieved its goal of an accurate moon landing moon with only one of two main thrusters operating, JAXA stated Thursday, while a small rover returned an image of the spacecraft.
SLIM made a precise landing at 25.24889 East, 13.31549 South on the slope of Shioli crater, 55 meters from the target point, Shinichiro Sakai, SLIM team project manager at JAXA, said during a press conference early Thursday (Jan. 25), fulfilling a key mission criterion.
The agency aimed for a high-precision landing, defined as being within 100 meters of the target point.
SLIM made its historic lunar landing Jan. 19, also successfully releasing a pair of small rovers onto the surface just before touchdown. The SLIM landing made Japan the fifth country to land on the moon, but issues with power generation meant the spacecraft’s active time on the surface was cut short. However hope remains that SLIM can be reactivated before the end of the month.
Sakai revealed however that one of the two main thrusters likely failed during the final landing phase. This took place from an altitude of 50 meters to touchdown, resulting in unintended lateral motion above.
“Under these circumstances, the SLIM onboard software autonomously identifies the anomaly, and while controlling the horizontal position as much as possible, SLIM continued the descent with the other engine and moved gradually towards the east.”
The SLIM landing was intended to occur in two steps. First with landing thrusters down, then a smaller thruster firing to tip the spacecraft onto its side. SLIM is then cushioned by five crushable, 3D-printed aluminum lattice landing legs.
An image of SLIM taken by one of the rovers, Transformable Lunar Robot LEV-2, reveals the spacecraft to be on the lunar surface with its thruster pointing upwards. The cause of the apparent engine malfunction is being investigated.
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