Japan's SLIM mission faces power challenge after historic lunar landing

Japan's SLIM mission faces power challenge after historic lunar landing

The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) of Japan became the fifth spacecraft to achieve a soft landing on the moon after it successfully touched down near the Shioli crater on January 19, 2024. But the spacecraft mission is facing a big challenge with its power generation as the lander's solar panels are playing up. SLIM is an acronym for a robotic spacecraft designed to further develop new technologies for precise and safe lunar landing and to conduct scientific investigations of the lunar surface. The final version of the lander carried with it an infrared camera, a laser altimeter, while two small rovers were released shortly before touchdown. The mission is to prove the ability to touch down within 100 meters of a designated target location, where future exploration would focus on certain sites of interest on the moon. The lander was launched on September 14, 2023, from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan aboard an H-IIA rocket. It used gravity assists from Earth and the…