Japan's SLIM Lunar Probe May Lose Contact Permanently

On June 27th, TapTechNews reported that the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) stated that its small lunar landing probe SLIM has tried many times without success in the past week. Currently, it has been unable to restore communication with the Earth, and the possibility of restoring communication in the future is also very low, and it may lose contact permanently.

According to TapTechNews' previous report, SLIM successfully achieved precise landing within an error of 100 meters on the lunar surface at 11:20 PM on January 19 this year. However, due to the solar panels not facing the direction of the sun when landing, it was unable to generate electricity for the battery.

In order to prevent permanent damage to the detector due to excessive discharge, the SLIM team shut down the detector's power at 1:57 AM on the 20th through ground instructions. Since the direction of sunlight hitting the lunar surface keeps changing, there is a possibility that it will irradiate the solar panels of the detector and restore battery power generation.

Since then, the SLIM project team has tried many times to re-establish communication with the detector. On May 28, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency announced that it gave up restoring communication with SLIM.