Smart Lander for Investigating Moon facts for kids
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Half scale model of SLIM in landing configuration
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| Names | SLIM |
|---|---|
| Mission type | Lunar lander and Lunar rover |
| Operator | JAXA |
| Mission duration | 1 year, 8 months, 30 days (elapsed) (since launch) 1 year, 4 months, 16 days (since landing) |
| Spacecraft properties | |
| Manufacturer | MELCO |
| Launch mass | 590 kg |
| Dry mass | 120 kg |
| Dimensions | 1.5 × 1.5 × 2 m (4 ft 11 in × 4 ft 11 in × 6 ft 7 in) |
| Start of mission | |
| Launch date | 6 September 2023 23:42:11 UTC |
| Rocket | H-IIA 202 |
| Launch site | Tanegashima Space Center |
| Contractor | Mitsubishi Heavy Industries |
| Lunar orbiter | |
| Orbital insertion | 25 December 2023 07:51 UTC |
| Lunar lander | |
| Landing date | 19 January 2024 15:20:00 UTC |
| Landing site | 13°18′S 25°12′E / 13.3°S 25.2°E (near Shioli crater) |
Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) is a lunar lander mission of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). In 2017 the plan was for the lander to be launched in 2021, but this was postponed to 2023 because of delays in SLIM's ride share, the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM). On 6 September 2023 at 23:42 UTC (7 September 08:42 Japan Standard Time), XRISM successfully launched. SLIM separated from XRISM later that same day. On 1 October 2023 SLIM executed its trans-lunar orbit injection burns. The lander successfully entered lunar orbit on 25 December 2023 and landed on 19 January 2024 at 15:20 UTC, making Japan the fifth country to soft land on the surface of the Moon.
Contents
Background
The main purpose of Japan's first lunar surface mission was to demonstrate precision lunar landing. During its descent the lander recognized lunar craters by applying technology from facial recognition systems, and determined its current location from utilizing observation data collected by the SELENE (Kaguya) lunar orbiter mission. SLIM aimed to soft land with an accuracy range of 100 m (330 ft). In comparison, the accuracy of the 1969 Apollo 11 Eagle lunar module was an elliptic which was 20 km (12 mi) long in downrange and 5 km (3.1 mi) wide in crossrange. According to Yoshifumi Inatani, deputy director general of the JAXA Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), succeeding in this extremely precise landing will lead to enhanced quality of space exploration.
The expected cost for developing this project is 18 billion yen, or US$121.5 million.
History
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). 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. In June 2014, SLIM passed the semi-final selection along with the DESTINY+ technology demonstration mission, and in February 2015 SLIM was ultimately selected. From April 2016, SLIM gained project status within JAXA. In May 2016, Mitsubishi Electric (MELCO) was awarded the contract for building the spacecraft. SLIM was not the first Japanese lunar lander built for operation on the Moon's surface; on 27 May 2016 NASA announced that the OMOTENASHI (Outstanding Moon exploration Technologies demonstrated by Nano Semi-Hard Impactor) CubeSat lander jointly developed by JAXA and the University of Tokyo was to be launched as a secondary payload on Space Launch System (SLS) Artemis 1. 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 had ceased, due to the solar cells failing to generate power because of them facing away from the Sun. They wouldn't face towards the Sun again 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 flight to a rideshare H-IIA flight. The resulting cost savings will be transferred to develop other satellites that are behind schedule due to XRISM.
Rovers
Lunar Excursion Vehicle 1
Lunar Excursion Vehicle 1 (LEV-1) is a lunar rover 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 and OMOTENASHI.
Science Payloads:
- Thermometer
- Radiation monitor
- Inclinometer
Lunar Excursion Vehicle 2
Lunar Excursion Vehicle 2 (LEV-2) or SORA-Q, is a tiny rover developed by JAXA in joint cooperation with Tomy, Sony Group, and Doshisha University, which will be mounted on SLIM. 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. It is the second rover of its kind to attempt operations on the lunar surface, the first one being on Hakuto-R Mission 1, crashing along with the lander before it was even deployed from that lander.
Mission
SLIM was successfully launched together with the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) space telescope on 6 September 2023 at 23:42 UTC (7 September 08:42 Japan Standard Time) planning to land near Shioli crater (13.3°S, 25.2°E) via weak stability boundary like trajectory. SLIM entered lunar orbit 25 December JST.
The lunar lander, nicknamed Moon Sniper for its extremely accurate landing precision, of about 100 meters (330 ft) landing ellipse, touched down onto the Moon on 19 January 2024 at 15:20 UTC, at the Sea of Nectar, south of the Theophilus crater. Japan thus became the fifth nation to successfully soft land an operational spacecraft on the Moon, after the Soviet Union, United States, China, and India.
Although it landed successfully, its operational state is unclear because the solar panels are not oriented toward the Sun, thereby failing to generate enough power. The lander operated on internal battery power, which was fully drained that day. The mission's operators hope that the lander will wake up after a few days when sunlight should hit the solar panels.
The two LEV 1 and 2 rovers, deployed while the lander was hovering just before it touched down, are working as planned, with LEV-1 communicating independently to ground stations.
See also
In Spanish: SLIM (módulo de aterrizaje) para niños
- Japanese Lunar Exploration Program
- Hiten
- LUPEX
- Chandrayaan-3
- List of missions to the Moon
