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Japan Makes History With Tense, Successful Moon Landing

Accepted submission by upstart at 2024-01-19 20:26:03
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upstart [soylentnews.org] writes:

████ # This file was generated bot-o-matically! Edit at your own risk. ████

Japan makes history with tense, successful moon landing [spacenews.com]:

HELSINKI — Japan’s SLIM “Moon Sniper” spacecraft made a successful lunar landing Friday, making the country just the fifth to robotically land on the moon.

The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) spacecraft began its descent from a 15-kilometer perilune shortly after 10:00 a.m. Eastern, Jan. 19 (1500 UTC), decelerating from a speed of around 1,700 meters per second.

SLIM appeared to have successfully touched down at 10:20 a.m. (1520 UTC), during a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) livestream [youtube.com] of the event. It was not however immediately clear if the landing was successful, with the livestream ending inconclusively. A wait of more than an hour followed for clarification and confirmation.

During the silence from JAXA, NASA’s Deep Space Network [nasa.gov] appeared to show signals from both SLIM and the Lunar Excursion Vehicle 1 (LEV-1)—a small rover accompanying SLIM and ejected onto the surface at an altitude of two meters—being received in Madrid. Amateur tracking stations meanwhile reported signals from both SLIM and LEV-1.

JAXA confirmed landing success during a press conference just under two hours after the landing occurred. However the spacecraft’s solar cells were not generating electricity. The reason for the solar cell issue was not immediately known, but spacecraft orientation—suggesting the lander may have rolled—is consider a possibility. SLIM is currently working on battery power.

“We believe that the soft landing itself was successful,” a JAXA official said, stating that the spacecraft had survived the landing and was sending data.

Teams are working to maximize data gathering and science output. LEV-1 and another rover, LEV-2, were also confirmed to have separated successfully and operating. JAXA will said it will hold another press conference in the following week.

Five crushable, 3D-printed aluminum lattice landing legs helped the lander absorb the impact of touchdown on the lunar surface.

The mission was primarily aiming to demonstrate precise landing technology, allowing the spacecraft to set down within 100 meters of a target point. SLIM was targeting a landing on the sloped rim inside the 300-meters-wide Shioli crater.

While the landing was confirmed successful, it will take up to a month to confirm the success or failure of the “pinpoint” landing. The accuracy will be assessed with observations from lunar orbit.

An accurate landing is not just an engineering feat, but one that could enable greater science returns.

“The SLIM mission, with its precision landing system, hopefully marks a more successful year of lunar landings by robotic explorers,” Katherine Joy, a Reader in Earth Sciences at the University of Manchester, told SpaceNews.

“Touching down in just the right spot is key to targeting really interesting lunar locations that can help us test key science questions about the evolution of the Moon and where we want to explore to assess possible lunar resources.”

The landing comes just under five months after India became the fourth country to land on the moon with Chandrayaan-3 [spacenews.com]. It also follows a day after Astrobotic’s Peregrine Mission One [spacenews.com] lunar lander reentered Earth’s atmosphere, with a propellant leak earlier scuppering plans for a lunar landing attempt.

It was not the first Japanese attempt to land on the moon. Tokyo-based private firm ispace aimed for a lunar landing [spacenews.com] in April 2023, but a software issue [spacenews.com] led to the loss of the HAKUTO-R M1 lunar lander. A new attempt using similar hardware with upgraded software is planned for later this year.

SLIM will spend the rest of the roughly 14-Earth-day-long lunar daytime on the moon carrying out science objectives. The spacecraft does not carry a radioisotope heater unit and is not expected to survive the lunar nighttime. During the lunar night temperatures will drop to around minus 130 Celsius.

The spacecraft’s Multi-Band Camera (MBC) will assess the composition of Shioli crater by analyzing the spectra of sunlight reflected off its surface. It will, in particular, be used to search for the presence of olivine, a mineral which may have been ejected from beneath the moon’s crust.

“Shioli impact crater, found in the nearside central highlands of the Moon, is a very small impact crater,” Joy notes. “The crater in itself is not that different from millions of other small craters on the Moon. However, it is located on the ejecta blanket of a much larger, roughly 100 km diameter, impact crater called Theophilus and so it might sample rocks and minerals that were excavated from deeper horizons within the lunar crust.”

SLIM also carried a pair of small, innovative rovers with it to the moon. Lunar Excursion Vehicle 1 (LEV-1) uses a hopping mechanism, while LEV-2 is a baseball-sized, spherical rover. Both carry cameras and science payloads.

SLIM launched [spacenews.com] Sept. 6, 2023, and completed a looping, 110-day voyage to the moon Dec. 25, when the spacecraft entered lunar orbit [spacenews.com]. The flight profile saved the spacecraft propellant and allowed for a higher science payload mass.

The spacecraft trimmed its orbit to a circular, 600-kilometer polar orbit Jan. 14 in preparation for the landing attempt.

SLIM is one of a number of 2024 lunar landing attempts, along with Peregrine Mission One. China is gearing up for an unprecedented lunar far side sample return [spacenews.com] mission around May. U.S. firm Intuitive Machines is planning up to three landings. The first, IM-1, is currently scheduled to launch in February [spacenews.com].

The wave of missions stems in part from a renewed interest in the moon, particularly surrounding the lunar south pole and potential sources of water-ice. It also coincides with growing international and commercial space capabilities and access to launch opportunities.

—

Edited at 12.51 p.m. Eastern, Jan. 19 to clarify issue of solar cell electricity generation to potentially be related to attitude of the lander.

forgot-to-pay-the-power-bill dept.

Smart Lander for Investigating Moon - Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:

Japanese lunar lander mission

NamesSLIMMission typeLunar lander [wikipedia.org] and Lunar rover [wikipedia.org]OperatorJAXA [wikipedia.org]COSPAR ID [wikipedia.org]2023-137D [nasa.gov]SATCAT no. [wikipedia.org]57803Websitewww.isas.jaxa.jp/home/slim/SLIM/index.html [isas.jaxa.jp]Mission duration4 months, 13 days (elapsed) (since launch)
0 days (since landing)ManufacturerMELCO [wikipedia.org]Launch mass590 kg [1]Dry mass120 kg [2]Dimensions1.5 × 1.5 × 2 m (4 ft 11 in × 4 ft 11 in × 6 ft 7 in) [1]Launch date6 September 2023 (2023-09-06) 23:42:11 UTC [wikipedia.org][3]RocketH-IIA [wikipedia.org] 202Launch siteTanegashima Space Center [wikipedia.org]ContractorMitsubishi Heavy Industries [wikipedia.org]Orbital insertion25 December 2023 (2023-12-25) UTC[4]Landing date19 January 2024 (2024-01-19) 15:20:00 UTC [wikipedia.org][4]Landing site[5]
(near Shioli [wikipedia.org] crater) 

Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) is a lunar lander [wikipedia.org] mission of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency [wikipedia.org] (JAXA). By 2017, the lander was planned to be launched in 2021,[2][6] but this was delayed until 2023 due to delays in SLIM's rideshare mission, X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission [wikipedia.org] (XRISM).[7] It was successfully launched on 6 September 2023 at 23:42 UTC (7 September 08:42 Japan Standard Time).[3] On 1 October 2023, the lander executed its trans-lunar injection burn. It entered orbit around the Moon on 25 December 2023, and landed on 19 January 2024 at 15:20 UTC. As a result, Japan [wikipedia.org] became the 5th country to soft land on the surface of the Moon [wikipedia.org].

Background[edit [wikipedia.org]]

SLIM is Japan's first lunar surface mission, and aims to demonstrate precise, pinpoint lunar landing. During its descent to the Moon [wikipedia.org], the lander will recognize lunar craters [wikipedia.org] by applying technology from facial recognition systems [wikipedia.org], and determine its current location from utilizing observation data collected by the SELENE [wikipedia.org] (Kaguya) lunar orbiter mission. SLIM aims to soft land [wikipedia.org] with an accuracy range of 100 m (330 ft).[6][8][9] In comparison, the accuracy of the 1969 Apollo 11 [wikipedia.org]Eagle lunar module [wikipedia.org] was an elliptic [wikipedia.org] which was 20 km (12 mi) long in downrange and 5 km (3.1 mi) wide in crossrange.[2] According to Yoshifumi Inatani, deputy director general of the JAXA Institute of Space and Astronautical Science [wikipedia.org] (ISAS), succeeding in this extremely precise landing will lead to enhanced quality of space exploration.[10]

The expected cost for developing this project is 18 billion yen.[11]

Mission[edit [wikipedia.org]]

SLIM was successfully launched together with the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission [wikipedia.org] (XRISM) space telescope on 6 September 2023 at 23:42 UTC (7 September 08:42 Japan Standard Time)[3] and is to land near Shioli [wikipedia.org] crater (13.3°S, 25.2°E) via Weak stability boundary [wikipedia.org] like trajectory.[12] SLIM entered lunar orbit 25 December JST. [13]

The descent stage, nicknamed Moon Sniper for its extremely accurate landing precision, of about 100 metres (330 ft) landing ellipse, touched down onto the Moon on 19 January 2024, at the Sea of Nectar [wikipedia.org]. Japan became the 5th nation to successfully soft land an operational lander on the Moon, after the USA, USSR, China, and India.[14][15]

Rovers[edit [wikipedia.org]] Lunar Excursion Vehicle 1[edit [wikipedia.org]]

Lunar Excursion Vehicle 1 (LEV-1) is a lunar rover [wikipedia.org] which will move using a hopping mechanism. The hopper has direct-to-Earth communication equipment, wide-angle visible light cameras (2), small electric equipment and UHF band antennas taken from MINERVA [wikipedia.org] and OMOTENASHI [wikipedia.org].[16]

Science Payloads:

  • Thermometer
  • Radiation monitor
  • Inclinometer

Lunar Excursion Vehicle 2[edit [wikipedia.org]]

Lunar Excursion Vehicle 2 (LEV-2) or SORA-Q [wikipedia.org] [ja [wikipedia.org]], is a tiny rover developed by JAXA in joint cooperation with Tomy [wikipedia.org], Sony Group [wikipedia.org], and Doshisha University [wikipedia.org], which will be mounted on SLIM.[17] The rover has a mass of 250 g and is equipped with two small cameras. LEV-2 can change its shape to run on the lunar surface for about two hours.[18] It is the second rover of its kind to attempt operations on lunar surface, the first one being on Hakuto-R Mission 1 [wikipedia.org], crashing along with the lander before it was even deployed from that lander.[19][20]

History[edit [wikipedia.org]]

The proposal which later came to be known as SLIM existed in 2005, as the Small Lunar Landing Experiment Satellite (小型月着陸実験衛星).[21] On 27 December 2013, ISAS called for proposals for its next "Competitively-Chosen Medium-Sized Focused Mission", and SLIM was among the seven proposals submitted.[2] In June 2014, SLIM passed the semi-final selection along with the DESTINY+ [wikipedia.org] technology demonstration mission, and in February 2015 SLIM was ultimately selected.[22] From April 2016, SLIM gained project status within JAXA.[23] In May 2016, Mitsubishi Electric [wikipedia.org] (MELCO) was reportedly awarded the contract for building the spacecraft.[24] SLIM is scheduled to be the second Japanese lunar lander to operate from the Moon's surface; on 27 May 2016 NASA [wikipedia.org] announced that the OMOTENASHI [wikipedia.org] (Outstanding Moon exploration Technologies demonstrated by Nano Semi-Hard Impactor) CubeSat [wikipedia.org] lander jointly developed by JAXA and the University of Tokyo [wikipedia.org] was launched as a secondary payload on Space Launch System [wikipedia.org] (SLS) Artemis 1 [wikipedia.org]. OMOTENASHI was meant to deploy a mini lunar lander weighing 1 kg, however on 21 November 2022, JAXA announced that attempts to communicate with the spacecraft have ceased, due to the solar cells failing to generate power because of them facing away from the Sun.[25] They won’t face towards the Sun until March 2023.

In 2017, because of funding difficulties arising from XARM (XRISM)'s development cost, SLIM's launch was switched from a dedicated Epsilon [wikipedia.org] flight to a rideshare H-IIA [wikipedia.org] flight.[26] The resulting cost savings will be transferred to develop other satellites that are behind schedule due to XRISM.[26]

See also[edit [wikipedia.org]]

References[edit [wikipedia.org]]

  1. ^ ab
  2. ^ abcd
  3. ^ abcDavenport, Justin (6 September 2023). "Japanese H-IIA launches X-ray telescope and lunar lander" [nasaspaceflight.com]. NASASpaceFlight. Archived [archive.org] from the original on 7 September 2023.
  4. ^ ab"JAXA | Moon Landing of the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM)" [global.jaxa.jp]. Archived [archive.org] from the original on 5 December 2023.
  5. ^"Archived copy" [global.jaxa.jp](PDF). Archived [archive.org](PDF) from the original on 8 September 2023.
  6. ^ abHongo, Jun (12 November 2015). "Japan Plans Unmanned Moon Landing" [wsj.com]. The Wall Street Journal. Archived [archive.org] from the original on 3 March 2018.
  7. ^"Missions of Opportunity (MO) in Development – X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM)" [nasa.gov]. GSFC. NASA. Archived [archive.org] from the original on 6 September 2021.
  8. ^"Small lunar-lander "SLIM" for the pinpoint landing technology demonstration" [archive.org](PDF). 9 June 2015. Archived from the original [www.dlr.de](PDF) on 28 March 2017.
  9. ^"[PPS26-10] Introduction of SLIM, a small and pinpoint lunar lander" [atlas.jp]. 30 April 2014. Archived [archive.org] from the original on 11 April 2023.
  10. ^
  11. ^
  12. ^
  13. ^"JAXA | Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) lunar orbit insertion" [global.jaxa.jp]. JAXA | Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Archived [archive.org] from the original on 26 December 2023.
  14. ^"15h00-16h00 GMT". Connect the World with Becky Anderson. 19 January 2024. CNN International.
  15. ^"Japan counts down to 'Moon Sniper' landing on lunar surface" [aljazeera.com]. Al Jazeera. 19 January 2024. Archived [archive.org] from the original on 19 January 2024.
  16. ^"小型プローブ LEV (Lunar Excursion Vehicle)" [www.jaxa.jp](PDF). Archived [archive.org](PDF) from the original on 24 September 2023.
  17. ^Hirano, Daichi (7 October 2022). "Palm-Sized Lunar Excursion Vehicle 2 (LEV-2)" [global.jaxa.jp]. JAXA [wikipedia.org]. Archived [archive.org] from the original on 3 October 2022.
  18. ^"Palm-Sized Lunar Excursion Vehicle 2 (LEV-2)" [global.jaxa.jp]. Archived [archive.org] from the original on 3 October 2022.
  19. ^Rabie, Passant (12 December 2022). "SpaceX Launches Moon-Bound Private Japanese Lander Following Delays" [gizmodo.com]. Gizmodo [wikipedia.org]. Archived [archive.org] from the original on 15 December 2022.
  20. ^"ispace、2022年末頃の打ち上げに向け、フライトモデル組み立ての最終工程に着手 Hakuto-Rのミッション1と2の進捗報告を実施" [ispace-inc.com]. ispace. Archived [archive.org] from the original on 27 June 2023.
  21. ^
  22. ^
  23. ^
  24. ^"Japanese lunar lander to be built by Mitsubishi Electric" [nikkei.com]. Nikkei Asian Review. 18 May 2016. Archived [archive.org] from the original on 10 April 2023.
  25. ^
  26. ^ ab

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Japan Moon Mission LIVE: JAXA attempts the lunar landing of its Smart Lander [youtube.com]:

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) attempts the lunar landing of its Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) spacecraft, hoping to become the world...

The Glitch That Brought Down Japan’s Lunar Lander [hackaday.com]:

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