(Article published on Monday February 26, 2024 at 7:52 am and updated at 9:14 am) Japan breathed a sigh of relief. The SLIM probe, placed on the moon since late January, has reactivated after surviving a two-week long lunar night, Japanese space agency JAXA announced on Monday.
” Last night, a command was sent to SLIM and a response was received, confirming that the craft had survived the lunar night and retained its communications capability! », announced Jaxan excitedly on X (formerly Twitter).
communications were ” After a while there was an interruption, as it was still a mid-moon day and the temperature of the communication equipment was too high “, Jaxa clarified.
A complicated moon landing
” Preparations are being made to resume operation when the equipment has cooled down sufficiently », the space agency added.
On January 20, the module successfully landed on the moon 55 meters from its target, i.e. very high precision. Japan became the fifth country to successfully land on Earth’s natural satellite after the United States, USSR, China and India. But due to a motor problem at the last moment, SLIM landed at an angle and its photovoltaic cells were not receiving sunlight, forcing Jaxa to initially disable it.
SLIM landed in a small crater less than 300 meters in diameter called Shioli, and before shutting down its two mini-rovers were able to land normally, to analyze rocks from the Moon’s (Moon’s) interior. mantle), is still very poorly known.
Getting to the moon is a big challenge
More than 50 years after the first human steps on the Moon by the Americans in 1969 – Earth’s natural satellite has once again become the subject of a global race. But getting to the moon is a huge technological challenge even for major space powers. The private American company Astrobotic, under contract with NASA, failed to land its first device on the moon in early January.
In 2022, the JAXA probe, Omotenashi, on the American Artemis 1 mission experienced a fatal battery failure shortly after its exit into space. And last year, a lander from the young private Japanese company Espace crashed on the lunar surface, missing a crucial step in the gentle descent.
In August, nearly 50 years after Moscow’s last successful lunar mission, the Luna-25 probe crashed on the moon. As for the American Artemis program, which plans to return astronauts to Earth’s natural satellite, it was recently postponed until September 2026, with the construction of a permanent base at the site for the long term. China has similar competitive plans.
India entered the race from the front door by becoming the first country to land a spacecraft near the south pole of the virtually unexplored moon in August, and a month later by successfully launching a spacecraft to observe the sun’s outermost lower layers. The Asian power now plans to send a man to the moon and build a space station by 2040.
(with AFP)