MOON LANDING: JAPAN'S SLIM MOON CRAFT SUCCESSFULLY LANDS ON THE MOON, SHORT ON POWER.

 

JAPAN'S SLIM MOON CRAFT SUCCESSFULLY LANDS ON THE MOON, SHORT ON POWER.

A Moon landing or lunar landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both crewed and robotic missions. The first human-made object to touch the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2, on 13 September 1959.

Soviet Union’s Luna 9 was the first spacecraft to achieve a moon landing, and, in general, survivable landing on a celestial body. It was launched on January 31, 1966, successfully landed on the Moon on February 3, and remained operational for 3 days. On 6 February at 22:55 UT, the batteries ran out of power and the mission ended.

Surveyor 1 was the first American spacecraft to perform a successful moon landing. It was launched on May 30, 1966, and landed in Oceanus Procellarum (the largest “mare” or “sea” on the moon) on June 2.

Over a period of about 30 days, Surveyor 1 transmitted more than 11,000 photographs as well as data on the moon’s surface and temperature.

Luna 13 was launched on December 21, 1966, and performed a soft landing on the Moon in Oceanus Procellarum on December 24.

Luna 13 was almost identical to Luna 9, the spacecraft that first performed a successful moon landing, except for some structural changes made in response to the experience gained from the Luna 9 mission and the addition of some experiments.

Luna 13 not only returned 5 panoramic photos of the landscape at different sun angles but also measured the lunar soil’s physical and mechanical properties and its radiation characteristics.

One of the two cameras intended to create stereo images failed, though, but the pictures the working camera provided were good.

Surveyor 3 was launched on April 17, 1967, and landed on April 20, 1967, at the Mare Cognitum portion of the Oceanus Procellarum.

The probe conducted experiments to see how the lunar surface would fare against the weight of an Apollo lunar module.

It transmitted 6,326 TV images to the Earth, including the first images to show what planet Earth looked like from the Moon’s surface.

Surveyor 3 returned the last data on May 4, 1967, at 00:04 UT. The moon probe failed to come back to life after the two-week lunar night.

The United States' Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to land on the Moon, on 20 July 1969. There were six crewed U.S. landings between 1969 and 1972, and numerous uncrewed landings, with no soft landings happening between 22 August 1976 and 14 December 2013.

On July 20, 1969, American astronauts Neil Armstrong (1930-2012) and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin (1930-) became the first humans ever to land on the moon. About six-and-a-half hours later, Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon. As he took his first step, Armstrong famously said, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." The Apollo 11 mission occurred eight years after President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) announced a national goal of landing a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s. Apollo 17, the final manned moon mission, took place in 1972.

Apollo 14, the eighth crewed mission in the United States Apollo program (the third to land on the Moon) was launched on January 31, 1971.

Astronauts Alan B. Shepard Jr. (commander) and Edgar D. Mitchell (lunar module pilot) landed on the Moon on February 5, 1971. The third crewmember, Stuart A. Roosa (command module pilot) remained in lunar orbit.

The crew performed a number of scientific experiments and performed two EVAs (extravehicular activity). During these EVAs, the astronauts collected 42.6 kg (94 pounds) of lunar rocks and soil for return to Earth.

The lunar module (named “Antares”) lifted off from the Moon on February 6. It docked with the orbiting command module (named “Kitty Hawk”) 1 hour and 47 minutes later.

The mission ended with a splashdown in the South Pacific Ocean on February 9, 1971.

Japan’s unmanned “sniper” probe made a lunar touchdown on Saturday. SLIM is one of several new lunar missions launched by governments and private firms, 50 years after the first human Moon landing.

Japan has become the fifth country to put a spacecraft on the moon, but solar power issues threatened to cut short the nation’s mission to prove a "precision" landing technology and revitalise a space programme that has suffered setbacks.

It was successfully launched on 6 September 2023 at 23:42 UTC (7 September 08:42 Japan Standard Time). On 1 October 2023, the lander executed its trans-lunar injection burn. It entered orbit around the Moon on 25 December 2023, and landed on 19 January 2024 at 15:20 UTC.

The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, SLIM, craft used precision technology to make a soft landing. However, officials said its solar cells were not generating power.

Only four other countries have made it to the Moon: the United States, the Soviet Union, China and, most recently, India.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said its Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) landed the moon's surface at around 12:20 a.m. (1520 GMT Friday), but its solar panels were not able to generate electricity, possibly because they are angled wrong.

JAXA prioritised the transfer of SLIM's data to earth as the probe relied only on its battery, which would last for "a few hours" despite "life-sustaining treatments" such as turning off its heater, Hitoshi Kuninaka, the head of JAXA's research centre, told a press conference.

JAXA will maintain the status quo rather than take risky actions and hopes a shift in the sunlight's angle will hit the panels in a way that can restore its functions, he added.

"It takes 30 days for the solar angle to change on the moon," Kuninaka said. "So when the solar direction changes, and the light shines from a different direction, the light could end up hitting the solar cell."

Signal from the SLIM was lost, data from NASA's Deep Space Network showed. It was not immediately clear whether the signal loss was temporary or a power-saving measure.

Dubbed the "moon sniper", SLIM attempted to land within 100 metres (328 feet) of its target, versus the conventional accuracy of several kilometres, a technology JAXA says will become a powerful tool in future exploration of hilly moon poles seen as a potential source of oxygen, fuel and water.

Two probes detached successfully, JAXA said. One with a transmitter and another designed to trundle around the lunar surface beaming images to Earth.

"Looking at the trace data, SLIM most certainly achieved a landing with 100-metre accuracy," Kuninaka said, although adding it will take about a month to verify it.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida called the landing “very welcome news”. But he said he was aware that more “detailed analysis” on the solar cells was needed.