{"id":1985,"date":"2024-01-23T11:15:01","date_gmt":"2024-01-23T05:15:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usbnews24.com\/?p=1985"},"modified":"2024-01-23T11:34:16","modified_gmt":"2024-01-23T05:34:16","slug":"japan-says-possibility-moon-lander-power-can-be-restored","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/?p=1985","title":{"rendered":"Japan says ‘possibility’ Moon lander power can be restored"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Japan switched off its Moon lander almost three hours after a\u00a0historic t<\/a>ouchdown<\/a>\u00a0to allow for a possible recovery of the craft when the sun hits its solar panels, the space agency said on Monday (Jan 22).<\/p>\n

With its unmanned Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) mission – dubbed “Moon Sniper” for the craft’s precision landing capabilities – Japan became the fifth country to achieve a soft lunar landing.<\/p>\n

But after the touchdown at 20 minutes past midnight on Saturday, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)\u00a0could not confirm that the lightweight craft’s solar batteries were generating power.<\/p>\n

Before turning the lander off remotely, mission control was able to receive technical and image data from its descent, and from the lunar surface.<\/p>\n

“We’re relieved and beginning to get excited after confirming a lot of data has been obtained,” JAXA said Monday in a statement, adding that “according to the telemetry data, SLIM’s solar cells are facing west”.<\/p>\n

“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,” it said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Graphic on Japan’s ‘Moon Sniper’ mission, which aims to land a spacecraft within 100m of a specific lunar target. (Image: AFP\/Gal Roma\/Paz Pizarro)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n
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SLIM is one of several new lunar missions launched by governments and private firms, 50 years after the first human Moon landing.<\/p>\n

Crash landings and communication failures are rife, and only four other countries have made it to the Moon: the United States, the Soviet Union, China and most recently India.<\/p>\n

JAXA said it had disconnected SLIM’s battery just before 3am when it had 12 per cent power remaining, “in order to avoid a situation where the restart (of the lander) would be hampered”.<\/p>\n

The agency is now carrying out a detailed analysis of the data, to help determine whether the craft achieved the goal of arriving within 100m of its intended landing spot.<\/p>\n

The mission 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.<\/p>\n

By analysing the rocks there, JAXA had hoped to shed light on the mystery of the Moon’s possible water resources – key to building bases there one day as possible stopovers on the way to Mars.<\/p>\n

Two probes detached successfully, one with a transmitter and another designed to trundle around the lunar surface beaming images to Earth.<\/p>\n

This shape-shifting mini-rover, slightly bigger than a tennis ball, was co-developed by the firm behind the Transformer toys.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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JAXA said on Monday it was preparing to make further announcements this week on the results of the mission, and the status of the SLIM craft.<\/p>\n

Although not everything went to plan, “we may be able to produce plenty of results and we’re happy that the landing succeeded”, it said.<\/p>\n

Previous Japanese lunar missions have failed twice – one public and one private.<\/p>\n

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In 2022, the country unsuccessfully sent a lunar probe named Omotenashi as part of the United States’s Artemis 1 mission.<\/p>\n

In April, Japanese startup ispace 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”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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Source: AFP\/CNA\/JAXA<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Japan switched off its Moon lander almost three hours after a\u00a0historic touchdown\u00a0to allow for a possible recovery of the craft when the sun hits its solar panels, the space agency said on Monday (Jan 22). With its unmanned Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) mission – dubbed “Moon Sniper” for the craft’s precision landing capabilities – Japan became the fifth country to achieve a soft lunar landing. But after the touchdown at 20 minutes past midnight on Saturday, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)\u00a0could not confirm that the lightweight craft’s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1986,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}