Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

Japanese lander touches down on the moon, but suffers power glitch

Georgina Torbet
By

A Japanese mission has succeeded in landing on the moon, but it likely won’t last for more than a day due to an issue with its solar cells. The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM), from Japanese space agency JAXA, is the second mission in a week to have trouble attempting to land on the moon, showing that despite the Apollo landings occurring more than 50 years ago, lunar landings continue to be a major challenge.

Artist's illustration of the SLIM lander touching down on the moon.
Artist’s illustration of the SLIM lander touching down on the moon. JAXA

The SLIM lander entered orbit around the moon on December 25 last year and made its landing on Friday, January 19. The soft landing — meaning touching down under control on the surface — was successful, making Japan the fifth country to achieve this feat. A video released last year by JAXA shows the complex landing process that SLIM performed:

Japan to launch SLIM lunar lander to moon! See the mission animation

“SLIM has been communicated to the Earth station, and it is receiving commands from the Earth accurately. The spacecraft is responding to these in a normal way,” said Hitoshi Kuninaka, Director General of the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science – JAXA, in a press conference following the landing attempt. “However, it seems that the solar cell is not generating electricity at this point in time. Since we are not able to generate electricity, the operation is being done using battery.”

Recommended Videos

Unfortunately, only a small amount of battery power is available, which will run out within a day. That means the mission will likely soon end unless the sun’s movement allows the solar cells to charge.

Related

While hovering over the moon’s surface, the lander separated two tiny rovers, LEV-1 and LEV-2, and JAXA was able to receive telemetry data from LEV-1. However, LEV-2 relays its data via the lander, so it won’t be able to communicate once the power runs out.

Still, JAXA will attempt to take as many measurements as possible in the limited time before the battery dies. “We are making efforts to maximize the scientific achievement,” Kuninaka said.

JAXA said it hopes to release more information on the status of the mission and its findings next week, including information on the issue with the solar cells.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Georgina Torbet
Georgina Torbet
Space Writer
Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…
U.S. spacecraft lands on the moon for the first time in over 50 years
Intuitive Machines' Odysseus lander heads to the moon.

The U.S. company Intuitive Machines made a historic landing on the moon today. Intuitive Machines' Odysseus lander, launched earlier this month, touched down on the moon's surface at 6:23 p.m. ET, marking the U.S.'s first lunar landing since Apollo 17 in 1972 and the first landing on the moon by a commercial entity.

The Odysseus lander is part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which provides contracts to companies for lunar services, and it carries a number of NASA scientific instruments. It has landed on the moon's south pole, which is an area of particular scientific interest as it hosts water ice and is the region where NASA plans to land astronauts under its Artemis program.

Read more
SpaceX just launched a moon mission that could enter the history books
Intuitive Machines' Odysseus lander heads to the moon.

SpaceX successfully launched a commercial mission to the moon from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in the early hours of Thursday morning.

A Falcon 9 rocket carried Intuitive Machines' Odysseus lander to orbit, setting it on course for a rendezvous with the lunar surface next week.

Read more
The moon is shrinking, causing moonquakes at the lunar south pole
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC), Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) mosaic of the Wiechert cluster of lobate scarps (left pointing arrows) near the lunar south pole. A thrust fault scarp cut across an approximately 1-kilometer (0.6-mile) diameter degraded crater (right pointing arrow).

The moon was long thought to be geologically dead, with no processes occurring inside its core.  But increasing evidence over the last decades suggests that the moon isn't static and could, in fact, still be tectonically active. Now, new research from NASA suggests that the shrinking of the moon over time is causing moonquakes and the formation of faults near its south pole.

The research is part of NASA's interest in the lunar south pole, given the agency's intention to send astronauts there. Researchers have modeled lunar activity to look for the source of moonquakes seen during the Apollo missions.

Read more