Space: The Japanese SLIM probe lands on the moon
Japan has become the fifth country in the world to land a spacecraft on the moon, after the United States, Russia, China and India. But the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said that “solar cells do not produce energy.”
Half success? The Japanese space agency JAXA has confirmed that the Japanese space module SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) has indeed landed on the moon's surface on Friday (Saturday morning in Japan) and communications can be made. But everything did not go as hoped: “Solar cells [de la sonde] “Does not produce energy,” the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency specified. This failure should be due to the negligence of the mission.
Despite this bad news, the Japanese can be proud of their success in landing a vehicle on the moon's surface with unparalleled accuracy, up to 100 metres. Furthermore, JAXA engineers appear to be able to send computer commands from Earth and the probe will respond correctly. Finally, the two small rovers carried by the probe were able to be released before landing on the moon's surface.
After landing in an area covered in volcanic rocks, SLIM had to search for clues about the origin of the Moon, including analyzing minerals with a special camera.
Japan expressed its hope that the success of this mission would contribute to this Restoring confidence in space technology after several failures. In April, a vehicle designed by a Japanese company crashed during an attempt to land on the moon, and a new rocket failed in its first launch last March.
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