First image of the moon and lunar surface as seen by the SLIM Jaxa lander
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA — After arriving in orbit around moon On December 25, 2023, Japan’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) lunar lander beamed back the first images of the lunar surface. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) revealed image of the lunar surface with monochrome colors but very detailed. It can be seen that the moon has pockets of craters, and the image was uploaded to the X JAXA account.
This image was taken after the spacecraft was successfully inserted into lunar orbit at 02.51 EST (14.51 WIB) on Monday (25/12/2023).
“SLIM successfully completed main engine injection at 16.51 JST (Japan time) and successfully entered lunar orbit! “Below is an image sent from SLIM near the moon,” JAXA officials wrote.
SLIM launches on September 6, 2023, in conjunction with JAXA’s X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM). Meanwhile XRISM remains in orbit around Earth, carrying out its mission to investigate cosmic X-ray sources.
SLIM leaves Earth into an elliptical orbit, circling the moon approximately once every 6.4 hours. This orbit brought the lander as close as possible to the lunar surface at about 373 miles (600 kilometers), and the spacecraft swung by 2,485 miles (4,000 kilometers) from the moon.
The 8.8-foot (2.7-meter) long spacecraft is scheduled to land on the moon on January 24, 2024. If the SLIM moon landing is successful, Japan will become the fifth country after the Soviet Union, US, China and India to land on month successfully.
After successfully landing on the moon, SLIM will verify the technology required for landing on the moon and also the planets of the solar system, as well as conduct close-range investigations of the lunar surface with small-scale probes.
“By creating the SLIM lander, humans will make a qualitative change to be able to land where we want and not just where it is easy to land, as was the case previously,” the space agency wrote in its mission description.
“By achieving this, it would be possible to land on planets where resources are more scarce than the moon,” they wrote again.
2023-12-28 11:53:25
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