Overview
- LEV-2, a transformable, baseball-sized rover deployed from JAXA’s SLIM lander on January 19, 2024, unfolded into a two-wheeled configuration and moved autonomously across the nearby lunar surface.
- During about 100 minutes on the Moon the rover captured multiple high-resolution images and relayed selected photos to Earth through its companion LEV-1, including a shot that showed SLIM lying upside down and helped engineers diagnose the lander’s power problem.
- The mission exposed key failures: SLIM’s thruster problem left the lander overturned, LEV-2 experienced repeated communication dropouts, and the rover lost contact after roughly 100 minutes likely because its battery drained, with some telemetry and image data lost in transmission.
- The rover weighed about 230–250 grams and measured roughly 8 cm across, and its folding mechanism was adapted from commercial transforming toys in a partnership with TakaraTomy with added space-hardened reliability features.
- Authors say small, low-cost morphable rovers can complement larger spacecraft by accessing cramped or hazardous spots but must overcome hard limits on power, communications, and payload if they are to operate in swarms or as routine mission partners.