Japan’s moon lander has come back to life, the nation’s space agency said yesterday, enabling the craft to proceed with its mission of investigating the lunar surface despite its rocky start.
The surprise announcement was a boost to Japan’s space program, nine days after the Smart Lander for Investigating the Moon (SLIM) touched down at a wonky angle that left its solar panels facing the wrong way.
“Last evening we succeeded in establishing communication with SLIM, and resumed operations!” the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) wrote on social media, posting a grainy image of a lunar rock known as “toy poodle.”
Photo: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency / Takara Tomy / Sony Group / Doshisha University via Reuters
“We immediately started scientific observations with MBC, and have successfully obtained first light for 10-band observation,” it said, referring to the lander’s multiband spectroscopic camera.
SLIM’s Jan. 20 touchdown made Japan only the fifth nation to achieve a “soft landing” on the moon after the US, the Soviet Union, China and India, but on its descent, dubbed the “20 minutes of terror,” the craft suffered engine problems and ended up at a skewed angle, images released by JAXA showed.
That meant the solar panels were facing west instead of up, and it was uncertain if they would still get enough sunlight to function.
JAXA last week said it had switched the elevator-sized SLIM off with 12 percent power remaining, hoping that the craft would wake up this week.
A JAXA spokesman yesterday said that the SLIM operation resumed “presumably because power generation resumed in its solar battery as it received sunlight.”
“We will prioritize what we can do now — observing and collecting information — rather than adjusting SLIM’s position since adjusting the position could lead to a worse situation,” he said.
“The daytime will last until around the end of January and it will be at night from around February,” he added.
Helping to repair its reputation after a number of mishaps, JAXA last week said that SLIM had landed 55m from its target. That meant that the “Moon Sniper” lived up to its nickname and landed within the 100m landing zone, much more precise than the usual range of several kilometers.
Before powering the craft off, mission control was able to download technical and image data from SLIM’s descent and of the lunar crater where it landed.
Assuming it has enough juice, SLIM can now tackle its main mission of investigating an exposed area of the moon’s mantle, the inner layer usually deep beneath its crust.
Two probes also detached successfully, JAXA said — one with a transmitter and another designed to trundle around the lunar surface beaming images to Earth.
This shape-shifting mini-rover, slightly bigger than a tennis ball, was codeveloped by the firm behind the Transformer toys.
Russia, China and other nations from South Korea to the United Arab Emirates are also trying to reach the moon.
US firm Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander began leaking fuel after takeoff this month, dooming its mission. It likely burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere on its return.
NASA has also postponed plans for crewed lunar missions under its Artemis program.
Two previous Japanese lunar missions — one public and one private — failed.
The nation in 2022 unsuccessfully sent a lunar probe named Omotenashi as part of the US’ Artemis 1 mission.
Japanese start-up ispace in April last year tried in vain to become the first private company to land on the moon, losing communication with its craft after what it described as a “hard landing.”
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