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Japan has re - establish connecter with its Smart Lander for investigate the Moon ( SLIM ) spacecraft , almost nine days after it touch on down on themoon ’s surface and lose tycoon .
" communicating with SLIM was successfully instal last night , and operations resumed ! " the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency ( JAXA ) postedon X , formerly known as Twitter , on Jan. 28 at around 7:30 p.m. ET .
The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM), taken by LEV-2 on the moon, released on January 25, 2024.
On Jan. 19 , the space vehicle was condescend toward its landing spot near the brim of Shioli volcanic crater when one of its two independent thrusters failed , causingSLIM to tip on its olfactory organ . As a termination , SLIM ’s solar panel were initially at the wrong angle and ineffectual to charge , but late on Sunday , the probe started to generate electricity , probably due to a change in the direction of sun , Reutersreported .
nickname the " Moon Sniper , " the ballistic capsule was design using a new navigation system that enable preciseness landings , attest by SLIM ’s impressive accuracy when it have-to doe with down within 328 substructure ( 100 meters ) of its target area despite its technological mischance — making Japan the fifth national distance agency to shoot down a spacecraft onthe synodic month . During its ancestry , SLIM ’s navigational engineering determine its localization while cruise by compare real - time images from its tv camera to satellite shot of the moon .
— Days before dying , Japan ’s lunar lander break down glorious photograph of Earth during a full solar occultation
— give out Peregrine lunar lander post human remains will crash into Earth by Thursday ( Jan. 18 )
— Russia ’s Luna 25 lunar lander left a 33 - pes - wide crater when it crashed into the moon , NASA images let on
SLIM will now bear on its foreign mission to analyze the make-up of olivine rocks — a common mineral in the lunar encrustation — using a multi - band spectral television camera , which captures images beyond the wavelength of light seen by the human eye . Before the spacecraft ab initio lost power , JAXAreleased imagestaken by the lander ’s camera of rocks in the palisade area , then share a novel image of the " toy poodle dog " rock and roll on the open of the moon in its tweet last night .
While experts are not yet sure how longsighted SLIM will stay operational , the agency has previously said that SLIM was not design to survive a lunar night , the next of which begins on Feb. 1 .
