The first Japanese lunar module SLIM will land on the Moon’s surface on January 20 at 0.20 (January 19 at 18.20 Moscow time). writes about this RIA News Referring to the Japanese Aerospace Agency JAXA.
If the landing is successful, Japan will become the fifth country to send a module to the Moon.
The SLIM module, launched by an H2A launch vehicle from the Tanegashima launch site in September, was successfully launched into lunar orbit at an altitude of 600 kilometers on December 25, the agency previously reported. On Friday, January 19, the module will perform a maneuver to reduce the orbital limit to 15 kilometers.
“On Saturday, January 20, at 00:00 (January 19, 18:00 Moscow time), the module will begin to descend, and the landing will take place at 0.20 (18:20 Moscow time). “If the landing does not occur within this time frame, the next chance will be February 16, 2024,” JAXA said.
During the development of the lunar module, carried out by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in partnership with JAXA, particular attention was paid to precision during landing. If until now the landing was carried out with an accuracy range of about 10 kilometers, now it will have to land at a certain point with an error of no more than 100 meters. According to the developers, this means the end of an era in which the fact of the moon landing was important and the beginning of a new era in which the device precisely hit a certain place.
The second task faced by the designers was to reduce the weight of the equipment while maintaining operating accuracy. This is extremely important for the development of further spaceflight, as it will allow carrying a larger amount of necessary equipment.
SLIM will land two vehicles on the lunar surface: LEV1 and LEV2. LEV1 will engage in photography and its ability to “jump” on the lunar surface will also be tested. LEV2 is a small lunar rover about the size of a baseball. After landing on the Moon, it will take on an elongated shape and move across the Moon’s surface. While LEV1 takes photos and bounces around, while LEV2 rolls across the surface of the Earth satellite, SLIM itself will engage in astronomical observations.
If the module’s landing is successful and its missions are completed, the discovery data will be used in the development of the American lunar mission Artemis 1 (“Artemis-1”).
Before that, NASA engineers offered To create a system of corner reflectors (retroreflectors) on the Moon to facilitate the future landing of spacecraft on the satellite surface. The initiative is called the Lunar Retroreflector Array (LRA) or “Lunar Retroreflector Network.”
Previously in the Peregrine lunar module dead The problem is in the drive system.
Previously in the Peregrine lunar module dead The problem is in the drive system.