Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)’s Chandrayaan-2 mission provided valuable insights for Japan’s Smart Lander for Investigating the Moon (SLIM), helping it successfully land on the Moon on Saturday. India Today,
Although the Chandrayaan-2 mission was partially successful – since it failed to land on the Moon, its orbiter is still operational today and hovers above the lunar surface.
This helped Japan’s SLIM gather imagery and choose a landing location for the spacecraft.
Also read: ISRO’s Vikram lander, Chandrayaan-3, is pinged by retroreflector from NASA spacecraft
To date, the orbiter of the Chandrayaan-2 mission continues to study the Moon and provide important data on its topography, mineralogy, and the discovery of water ice. It weighs 3,850 kg and is a leap ahead of its predecessor Chandrayaan-1.
Chandrayaan-1 orbited the Moon at an altitude of 100 km for mapping purposes.
In another development, a NASA spacecraft carrying a laser instrument orbiting the moon has successfully pinged the Vikram lander of India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission, the US space agency said on January 24.
ISRO-JAXA Joint Mission:
ISRO and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) are set to collaborate on the upcoming LUPEX mission, a joint India-Japan venture. However, even before collaboration between the two emerged, JAXA had already benefited from ISRO’s experiences.
Slim Mission:
After a month-long journey, SLIM entered lunar orbit on 25 December. Its aim was to make a precision landing within 100 meters of its target site.
The latest imagery shows that it was bent which prevented its solar panels from charging. According to the description, the front part of SLIM appears to be resting on the lunar surface, its solar panels were unfortunately disrupted and the ability to generate solar power was cut off.
Meanwhile, JAXA scientists said it would take a few months for them to assess what went wrong during the landing.
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Published: 25 January 2024, 06:31 PM IST
