Moon: Night makes Japanese space module go back to sleep – 02/01/2024 – Science

After briefly waking up, the Japanese module on the Moon was once again out of action, the Jaxa space agency announced this Thursday (1st). The expectation is that he will resume his mission if he survives the two weeks of lunar night.

The unmanned module Slim (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) landed on the satellite in January this year at an angle that left its solar panels pointing the wrong way.

But with the solar angle changing this week, he recharged his batteries for two days and made scientific observations of a crater with his multiband spectroscopic camera.

“After completing operations on January 30th and 31st, Slim entered a two-week rest period during the long lunar night,” JAxa said on the social network X (formerly Twitter).

“Although Slim was not designed for the harsh lunar nights, we plan to try operating it again in mid-February when the Sun returns to illuminate its solar cells,” he added.

Also according to Jaxa, the module managed to “successfully complete its observations (…) as planned” with its camera and was able to study more areas than expected.

The space agency posted, this Thursday (31), a black and white photo of the rocky surface taken by the module.

Called “Moon Sniper” for its precision technology, Slim landed on the Moon on January 20 within the planned zone.

This was an achievement for the Japanese space program after a series of recent failures and made the country the fifth to achieve a soft landing on the Moon, after the United States, Soviet Union, China and India.

Despite the successful landing, on the descent the Slim suffered engine problems and ended up tipping over, leaving the solar panels facing west and not upwards.