9:20 AM - 9:40 AM
[PPS09-02] Post-landing Multi-Band Camera (MBC) observations of Japan's first lunar lander SLIM
★Invited Papers
Keywords:lunar exploration, moon landing, near-infrared spectroscopy, mantle
Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) was launched on 7 September 2023 and landed on the Moon on 20 January 2024. With this landing, Japan became the fifth country in the world to successfully land on the Moon. It was also the world's first successful pinpoint landing with an error of less than 100 meters. The landing site was selected near the SHIOLI crater (13.3S, 25.2E), south-west of the rim of the Theophilus crater, as a location considered suitable for achieving the objectives of SLIM's onboard Multi-Band Camera (MBC).
The objective of MBC was to land at locations where mantle material is likely to be exposed above ground, identify unknown lithologies scattered around the site, derive the Mg# (=Mg/(Mg+Fe) atomic ratio) of olivine contained in the mantle-source materials, if present, and compare this to the Earth's mantle composition.
MBC has spatial resolution (1.3 mm/pixel at 10 m) for identifying lithologies and ten band pass filters (750, 920, 950, 970, 1000, 1050, 1100, 1250, 1550, 1650 (nm)) for identifying mineral species and estimating Mg# of olivine.
As the landing attitude of SLIM was tilted by about 90 degrees more than expected and its solar panels were facing west and could not generate electric power after landing, one single-band test image was taken immediately after landing before removing the launch lock, and then the launch lock was released and a low-resolution scan image to map the rock were taken with 257 out of 333 images to create a mosaic image, as long as it was possible to operate on battery power. The solar panel power was then revived in the lunar evening, and by the time the lunar night arrived, two sets of scan images were taken at different observation wavelengths and 10-band data were acquired, including 10 rocks and distant regolith. Details of the post-landing operations and the observation results will be presented at the conference.
The objective of MBC was to land at locations where mantle material is likely to be exposed above ground, identify unknown lithologies scattered around the site, derive the Mg# (=Mg/(Mg+Fe) atomic ratio) of olivine contained in the mantle-source materials, if present, and compare this to the Earth's mantle composition.
MBC has spatial resolution (1.3 mm/pixel at 10 m) for identifying lithologies and ten band pass filters (750, 920, 950, 970, 1000, 1050, 1100, 1250, 1550, 1650 (nm)) for identifying mineral species and estimating Mg# of olivine.
As the landing attitude of SLIM was tilted by about 90 degrees more than expected and its solar panels were facing west and could not generate electric power after landing, one single-band test image was taken immediately after landing before removing the launch lock, and then the launch lock was released and a low-resolution scan image to map the rock were taken with 257 out of 333 images to create a mosaic image, as long as it was possible to operate on battery power. The solar panel power was then revived in the lunar evening, and by the time the lunar night arrived, two sets of scan images were taken at different observation wavelengths and 10-band data were acquired, including 10 rocks and distant regolith. Details of the post-landing operations and the observation results will be presented at the conference.