Smart Lander for Investigating Moon

Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) is a lunar lander mission of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The lander will demonstrate precision landing technology. By 2017, the lander was planned to be launched in 2021, but this was delayed until 2023 due to delays in SLIM's rideshare mission, X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM). It was successfully launched on 6 September 2023 at 23:42 UTC (7 September 08:42 Japan Standard Time). If the mission is successful, Japan will become the 5th country to soft land on the surface of the Moon. On 1 October 2023, the lander executed its trans-lunar injection burn.
Background
SLIM is Japan's first lunar surface mission, and aims to demonstrate precise, pinpoint lunar landing. During its descent to the Moon, the lander will recognize lunar craters by applying technology from facial recognition systems, and determine its current location from utilizing observation data collected by the SELENE (Kaguya) lunar orbiter mission. SLIM aims to soft land with an accuracy range of . In comparison, the accuracy of the 1969 Apollo 11 Eagle lunar module was an elliptic which was long in downrange and wide in crossrange. According to Yoshifumi Inatani, deputy director general of the JAXA Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), succeeding in this extremely precise landing will lead to enhanced quality of space exploration.
The expected cost for developing this project is 18 billion yen.
Mission
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) and is to land near Shioli crater (13.3°S, 25.2°E) via Weak stability boundary like trajectory.
Rovers
Lunar Excursion Vehicle 1
Lunar Excursion Vehicle 1 (LEV-1) is a lunar rover which will move using a hopping mechanism. The hopper has direct-to-Earth communication equipment, wide-angle visible light cameras (2), small electric equipment and UHF band antennas taken from MINERVA and OMOTENASHI.
Science Payloads:
Thermometer
Radiation monitor
Inclinometer
Lunar Excursion Vehicle 2
Lunar Excursion Vehicle 2 (LEV-2) or Sora-Q, is a tiny rover developed by JAXA in joint cooperation with Tomy, Sony Group, and Doshisha University, which will be mounted on SLIM. The rover has a mass of 250 g and is equipped with two small cameras. LEV-2 can change its shape to run on the lunar surface. It is the second rover of its kind to attempt operations on lunar surface, the first one being on Hakuto-R Mission 1, crashing along with the lander before it was even deployed from that lander.
History
The proposal which later came to be known as SLIM existed in 2005, as the . 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. 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 will be 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 have ceased, due to the solar cells failing to generate power because of them facing away from the Sun. They won’t face towards the Sun 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.
See also
Hiten
Kaguya (SELENE)
LUPEX
Chandrayaan-3
OMOTENASHI
List of missions to the Moon
References
External links
Official project site
JAXA SLIM page
ISAS/JAXA SLIM page
Missions to the Moon
Japanese Lunar Exploration Program
Japanese space probes
2023 in spaceflight
Proposed space probes