spacetoday.net: SLIM lands on Moon but loses power

Posted: Sat, Jan 27, 2024, 9:53 AM ET (1453 GMT)
A Japanese spacecraft landed on the moon Jan. 19 but lost power hours later. The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) lander touched down at Shioli crater at about 10:20 am EST (1520 GMT) Friday. While the spacecraft appeared to be transmitting data back to Earth after landing, JAXA did not immediately confirm that the landing was a success. At a briefing two hours after landing, the agency said that the spacecraft's solar panels were not generating power. In an update Jan. 22, JAXA said that it believes the spacecraft landed in the wrong attitude such that that solar panels are not facing the sun. Controllers turned off SLIM about two and a half hours after landing to conserve battery power, hoping that later in the two-week lunar day that sunlight will reach the panels and allow SLIM to resume operations. The landing makes Japan the fifth country to successfully soft-land a spacecraft on the moon.