Japan switched off its moon lander almost three hours after a historic touchdown on Saturday to allow for a possible recovery of the craft, the space agency said yesterday.
“If sunlight hits the moon from the west in the future, we believe there’s a possibility of power generation, and we’re currently preparing for restoration,” the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said in a statement.
The mission of the spacecraft, dubbed the “Moon Sniper” for its precision landing capabilities, made Japan only the fifth country to ever achieve a soft lunar landing. However, after the touchdown at 20 minutes past midnight, JAXA was unable to confirm that the craft’s solar batteries were generating power, it said.
Photo: EPA /JAXA Handout
“The battery was disconnected according to our procedures with 12 percent power remaining, in order to avoid a situation where the restart [of the lander] would be hampered,” it said.
“As a result, the spacecraft was switched off at 2:57 [am, Japan time],” it said.
The agency is now carrying out detailed analysis of data acquired during the landing, it said.
That would help determine whether the craft achieved the aim of landing within 100m of its intended landing spot.
The “Moon Sniper” mission, officially titled the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM), was aiming for a crater where the moon’s mantle, the usually deep inner layer beneath its crust, is believed to be exposed on the surface.
“We were able to complete the transmission of technical and image data acquired during the descent and on the lunar surface before the power was switched off,” JAXA said.
“We’re relieved and beginning to get excited after confirming a lot of data has been obtained,” it said, adding that “according to the telemetry data, SLIM’s solar cells are facing west.”
JAXA added that it was preparing to make further announcements this week on the results of the mission and the status of the SLIM craft.
“The post-landing posture didn’t go as planned, but we may be able to produce plenty of results and we’re happy that the landing succeeded,” it said.
SLIM is one of several new lunar missions launched by governments and private firms, 50 years after the first human moon landing.
Crash landings and communication failures are rife, and only four other countries have made it to the moon: the US, the Soviet Union, China and most recently India.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home