Japan’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) successfully landed on the moon’s surface on January 19, 2024. This makes Japan the fifth country to land a spacecraft on the moon, after Russia, the U.S., China, and India. 

However, SLIM’s solar panels aren’t working, which could shorten its life. The spacecraft also suffered a power glitch that prevented its solar cells from generating electricity. 

According to Reuters, SLIM achieved a landing with 100-meter accuracy, but it will take about a month to verify.

SLIM’s main landing gear touched down on the moon’s surface at 10:20 AM Eastern Time on January 19, 2024, which was midnight in Japan. This was the beginning of Saturday in Japan

SLIM’s engines fired at 10 AM Eastern Time on Friday to begin its descent from lunar orbit. The spacecraft is nicknamed the “Moon Sniper”.

According to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the landing was successful and the spacecraft was able to send signals after landing. However, the solar panels were impaired, leaving the spacecraft dependent on battery power. 

The technical issue with the spacecraft’s solar power has made it uncertain whether the mission will achieve all of its goals

Japan’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (Slim) successfully landed on the lunar surface, but its solar panel failure poses a challenge. Japan’s Slim moon craft short on power after successful lunar landing

Japan’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) successfully landed on the moon on January 19, 2024. The lander touched down at around 10:20 a.m. ET, and landed within a few kilometers of its intended landing zone

However, the lander immediately experienced a power glitch that prevented its solar cells from generating electricity. According to Futurism, the lander’s solar panels aren’t charging. 

Japan is the fifth country to land a spacecraft on the moon, after the Soviet Union, the United States, China, and India

Yes, there are other landers on the moon:

• Vikram lander: On August 23, 2023, India’s Vikram lander successfully landed in the lunar south pole region. The Vikram lander and Pragyan rover’s soft landing was the first uncrewed landing in this region. 
• Apollo Lunar Module: As of 2022, the Apollo Lunar Module is the only crewed lunar lander. 
• Surveyor program: The Surveyor program achieved five successful soft landings between 1968 and January 10. According to Quora, it’s not possible to see any of the lunar landers or rovers with a telescope from Earth.

Eugene Cernan was the last person to walk on the moon. Cernan was the commander of Apollo 17, the final flight of the Apollo program, which launched on December 7, 1972 and concluded on December 19, 1972. Cernan took his final steps on the moon on December 14, 1972. He died on January 16, 2017

Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) is a lunar lander mission of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). In 2017 the plan was for the lander to be launched in 2021, but this was postponed to 2023 because of delays in SLIM’s ride share, the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM)

The proposal which later came to be known as SLIM existed in 2005, as the Small Lunar Landing Experiment Satellite On 27 December 2013, ISAS called for proposals for its next “Competitively-Chosen Medium-Sized Focused Mission”, and SLIM was among the seven proposals submitted.^[2]In June 2014, SLIM passed the semi-final selection along with the DESTINY+ technology demonstration mission, and in February 2015 SLIM was ultimately selected. From April 2016, SLIM gained project status within JAXA. In May 2016, Mitsubishi Electric (MELCO) was reportedly awarded the contract for building the spacecraft. SLIM is scheduled to be the second Japanese lunar lander to operate from the Moon’s surface; on 27 May 2016 NASA announced that the OMOTENASHI(Outstanding Moon exploration Technologies demonstrated by Nano Semi-Hard Impactor) CubeSat lander jointly developed by JAXA and the University of Tokyo was launched as a secondary payload on Space Launch System(SLS) Artemis 1. OMOTENASHI was meant to deploy a mini lunar lander weighing 1 kg; however, on 21 November 2022, JAXA announced that attempts to communicate with the spacecraft had ceased, due to the solar cells failing to generate power because of them facing away from the Sun. They wouldn’t face towards the Sun again until March 2023.

In 2017, because of funding difficulties arising from XARM (XRISM)’s development cost, SLIM’s launch was switched from a dedicated Epsilon flight to a rideshare H-IIA flight.The resulting cost savings will be transferred to develop other satellites that are behind schedule due to XRISM.

SLIM was successfully launched together with the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission(XRISM) space telescope on 6 September 2023 at 23:42 UTC (7 September 08:42 Japan Standard Time) planning to land near Shiolicrater (13.3°S, 25.2°E) via weak stability boundary like trajectory. SLIM entered lunar orbit 25 December JST.

SLIM was successfully launched together with the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission(XRISM) space telescope on 6 September 2023 at 23:42 UTC (7 September 08:42 Japan Standard Time) planning to land near Shiolicrater (13.3°S, 25.2°E) via weak stability boundary like trajectory. SLIM entered lunar orbit 25 December JST.

The lunar lander, nicknamed Moon Sniper for its extremely accurate landing precision, of about 100 metres (330 ft) landing ellipse, touched down onto the Moon on 19 January 2024 at 15:20 UTC, at the Sea of Nectar, south of the Theophilus crater. Japan thus became the fifth nation to successfully soft land an operational spacecraft on the Moon, after the Soviet Union, United States, China, and India.

The lunar lander, nicknamed Moon Sniper for its extremely accurate landing precision, of about 100 metres (330 ft) landing ellipse, touched down onto the Moon on 19 January 2024 at 15:20 UTC, at the Sea of Nectar, south of the Theophilus crater. Japan thus became the fifth nation to successfully soft land an operational spacecraft on the Moon, after the Soviet Union, United States, China, and India.

Although it landed successfully, its operational state is unclear because the solar panels are not oriented toward the Sun, thereby failing to generate enough power. The lander operated on internal battery power, which was fully drained that day. The mission’s operators hope that the lander will wake up after a few days when sunlight should hit the solar panels

The two LEV 1 and 2 rovers, deployed while the lander was hovering just before it touched down, are working as planned, with LEV-1 communicating independently to ground stations

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