Japan’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM), affectionately dubbed “Moon Sniper” in Japanese, has entered a dormant phase after enduring two lunar nights, Japan’s space agency JAXA announced on Monday.
SLIM made its touchdown on the lunar surface on January 20, executing a pinpoint landing within 100 meters of the intended target. However, it landed upside-down, leaving its solar panels unable to harness sunlight for power generation.
Mission officials expressed concerns over the lander’s potential freezing and inability to withstand the extreme lunar nights, where temperatures plummet to as low as -130 degrees Celsius.
Despite these challenges, the unmanned lander, weighing 200 kilograms, managed to survive the harsh lunar winter. JAXA reported that while some temperature sensors and unused battery cells are exhibiting signs of malfunction, the lander transmitted new images back to Earth.
Following the successful completion of its second overnight operation, the lander has been placed into a dormant state, JAXA confirmed.
“SLIM completed its second overnight operation in the early hours of March 30th and went dormant again,” JAXA stated in a post on Monday. “During this operation, we mainly checked the status of several devices by turning on switches and applying loads. Although there are some malfunctions in some functions of MBC, it still works, so we are carefully checking its status.” MBC refers to the multi-band camera used for examining lunar rocks.
Japan now joins the ranks of Russia, the US, China, and India as the fifth nation to achieve a soft landing on the lunar surface.
