Surviving 2 weeks in the cold lunar night temperatures, SLIM spacecraft phones home!
On February 25, 2024, communication was reestablished with the JAXA SLIM demonstration moon lander following a 14-day lunar night. The spacecraft was not expected to survive the nighttime temperatures on the lunar surface, which can reach -280° F. The spacecraft was powered down again shortly thereafter to protect its electronic components from the intense heat of the lunar day.
The JAXA SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) was launched on September 7, 2023, and successfully landed on the lunar surface on January 20, 2024. Regrettably, the spacecraft landed upside down, and its solar panels were unable to capture sufficient sunlight, leading to a shutdown approximately two hours after touchdown. It is believed that a malfunction of one of the two engines during obstacle avoidance caused lateral velocity and attitude to deviate from the design range, resulting in the inverted landing. Following a nine-day suspension of activity, the lander received adequate sunlight to resume operations and began transmitting images of the lunar surface.
The SLIM lunar lander successfully deployed a transformable lunar robot (LEV-1) executed leaping movements and “inter-robot” communications with transformable lunar robot (LEV-2)
showing named surface features
Photos were taken with a Multi-Band Camera (MBC) using a mirror to generate 257 low-resolution images combined to generate this image. After landing and before power was interrupted, the MBC released a lock protecting the insinstrument during liftoff and landing.
On March 27, 2024, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) confirmed that the SLIM lunar lander had survived another lunar night. The lander returned an image from its navigation camera, which showed that it was still in one piece. However, JAXA reported that some temperature sensors and battery cells were beginning to malfunction due to the high temperatures on the moon.