A Japanese space module accomplished a technological feat by landing with great precision on the Moon during the night from Friday to Saturday, but the Japanese space agency (Jaxa) said it encountered a problem with its solar panels. With this success, Japan became the fifth country to successfully land on the Moon, after the United States, the USSR, China and India.
“A huge technological progress”
Jaxa confirmed that the SLIM module (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon), which had been orbiting the rocky star since the end of December, had landed at 12:20 a.m. Saturday (Friday 3:20 p.m. GMT) and that communications had been established with it since. “However, its solar cells do not produce energy and data acquisition from the lunar surface takes priority,” she added in a statement.
“SLIM works with onboard batteries. The data acquired during landing is stored on board, and we work to maximize scientific results by first transmitting this data to Earth,” said Hitoshi Kuninaka, an official with the Jaxa. The unmanned Japanese spacecraft, 2.4 m long, 1.7 m wide and 2.7 m high, is nicknamed “Moon Sniper”, because its mission was not only to land on the moon, but also to land less than 100 meters from its target.
It is common for lunar vehicles to land several kilometers from their objective, which can complicate their exploration missions. The precision of SLIM constitutes “a huge technological progress”, Emily Brunsden, director of the Astrocampus at the University of York (United Kingdom), told AFP a few hours before the feat. This precision moon landing is “exceptionally technologically difficult”, she stressed, because “there is generally only one chance, so the slightest error can lead to the failure of a mission”.
Analyzes “crucial for research into the origin of the Moon and the Earth”
SLIM landed in a small crater less than 300 meters in diameter, called Shioli, from where it should be able to carry out ground analyzes of rocks believed to come from the lunar mantle, the internal structure of the Earth’s natural satellite, which is still very poorly developed. known. These rocks “are crucial for research into the origin of the Moon and the Earth,” recalls Tomokatsu Morota, a lecturer at the University of Tokyo specializing in space exploration.
The Japanese mission also aims to advance research on water resources on the Moon, a key issue as the United States and China ultimately intend to install inhabited bases there. SLIM carries a spherical probe called SORA-Q, barely larger than a tennis ball, and capable of modifying its shape to move on the lunar surface. It was developed by Jaxa, in partnership with the Japanese toy giant Takara Tomy.
SORA-Q includes two cameras, and once its metal shell is opened, its two ends serve as wheels to move on an uneven surface.
Japan’s first two moon landing attempts went wrong
The success of the SLIM mission will allow Japan to “show its presence” in the space domain, according to Tomokatsu Morota. More than 50 years after the first human steps on the Moon – the Americans in 1969 – it has once again become the subject of a global race, in which the rivalry between the United States and China occupies a central role. But many other countries and private companies are also interested in it, such as Russia, which dreams of reconnecting with the space glory of the USSR, by partnering in particular with China or India, which succeeded last summer. last his first moon landing.
Japan’s first two attempts to land on the moon went wrong. In 2022, a Jaxa probe, Omotenashi, on board the American Artemis 1 mission, experienced a fatal battery failure shortly after its ejection into space. And in April 2023, a lunar lander from the young private Japanese company ispace crashed on the surface of the Moon, having missed the gentle descent stage.
Reaching the Moon remains an immense technological challenge, even for the major space powers: the private American company Astrobotic, under contract with NASA (American space agency), announced Thursday that its Peregrine lander had been deliberately lost, probably disintegrated on return in the Earth’s atmosphere before reaching its goal. NASA also postponed by almost a year the next two missions of its major return to the Moon program, Artemis, to September 2025 and September 2026.