In what can only be described as a slightly premature lunar siesta, Japan’s SLIM moon lander has gone dark after completing its impressive touchdown near a crater with the particularly memorable name Shioli. The mission, overseen by the very serious-sounding Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency or JAXA if you are into brevity, marked a significant milestone as Japan became the fifth country on Earth to land something on the Moon without utterly botching it.
SLIM which stands for Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (yes really) managed to stick its landing within 100 meters of its intended target which is a bit like throwing a dart from space and only just missing the bullseye. However shortly after touchdown engineers noticed something was off and not in the usual my-laptop-is-being-slow way. Solar panels were refusing to cooperate, which is a bit of a problem when your spaceship relies on star power to function.
Engineers posited that perhaps SLIM landed the wrong way up, possibly upside down or tilted, which would be unfortunate though one might argue this is what happens when you name your spacecraft Smart but fail to specify its sense of direction. Nevertheless before losing contact the lander managed to gather and beam back some scientific data and lunar images because if you are going to have a wardrobe malfunction on the Moon you might as well take a few selfies first.
This mild hiccup notwithstanding JAXA remains cautiously optimistic that once the Moon decides to be a bit more gracious with the sunlight and hits the right angle the solar panels might wake up, recharge SLIM and resume work. Think of it less as a catastrophic failure and more as a power nap with very ambitious timing.
After all even robots deserve a little rest after a perfect landing.