Posted on 01/22/2024 12:27:13 PM PST by Red Badger
Will Japan's moon lander get a charge from the sun â or will its mission be cut short when its battery dies?
Japan's space agency is facing that question now, even as it basks in the glow of becoming just the fifth country to achieve a soft landing on the moon. When it celebrated that feat on Friday (ET), the agency also announced that its spacecraft named SLIM, for Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, seemed unable to get electricity from its solar cell.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, said its engineers would study the problem, even as it raced to download data and images from the lunar mission. Three days later, it has now shut down the lander.
"At a battery level of 12%, the battery was disconnected (as planned)," JAXA said on Monday morning, adding that the lander was powered down to leave enough juice for a potential restart. The agency sounded a note of optimism that the lander might return to operation.
"According to the telemetry data, SLIM's solar cells are facing west," JAXA said. "So if sunlight begins to shine on the lunar surface from the west, there is a possibility of generating power, and we are preparing for recovery."
JAXA also confirmed that the SLIM mission, which succeeded in its precision targeting of a lunar landing site, sent a trove of information and images back to Earth before its battery ran low.
"We're currently conducting a detailed analysis, and are relieved to see that we obtained a lot of data," the agency said.
The lander will have to survive the moon's intense cold JAXA did not specify a timeframe for when the sun might be in a favorable position that could let it supply power to the energy-starved lander. But a recent comment from Hitoshi Kuninaka, director general of Japan's Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, or ISAS, provided some clues.
The spacecraft is built to go into a type of "sleep mode" if power is lost, Kuninaka said on Friday, citing the moon's long days and nights. One lunar day lasts around 29.5 Earth days, with about two weeks each of hot sunlight and frigid darkness â although as NASA notes, definitions of a "day" vary widely.
"So if the spacecraft survives the minus-200 degree night, then in two weeks' time, it could revive again," Kuninaka said. While SLIM was built to allow for that possibility, he added, it wasn't a key factor in its design.
"SLIM's original purpose ... is not to overcome the night," Kuninaka said. "So we just have this wishful thinking that SLIM will be able to survive the night."
"If the light is on the solar cell, then the reception equipment will start working once again automatically, and then we can send a command from Earth to reawake the system."
An update is expected later this week JAXA plans to hold a news conference later this week to share data about the moon mission. The update will likely include a more detailed prognosis on SLIM's solar cell and its less-than-ideal attitude â in this case, meaning the way the craft is oriented on the moon's surface.
"Although the attitude after landing did not go as planned, we are glad we [achieved] so much and are happy to have landed successfully," JAXA said on Monday.
Crowds of people watched the landing, which took place in the early hours of Saturday morning in Japan. A livestream from JAXA showed the lander carefully maneuvering toward the moon's surface, as SLIM's altitude ticked down to zero. It then stayed in contact, communicating from the moon.
As they announced the breakthrough, Japan's leading space officials seemed to be a bit muted, with the lander's power capabilities looming over the mission. A reporter even asked why they seemed so glum, rather than smiling.
"That would be difficult under the present circumstances," said Masaki Fujimoto, the deputy head of ISAS, according to The Asahi Shimbun. "If things had gone according to plan, I would be smiling now, but I need to know the condition [of the lander] as soon as possible."
PinG!...................
They need to pay tribute to the Reptilian Alien Empire’s Moon Base #728 if they want to restart the thing...they were trespassing after all....
Lol.
Rice lander needs juice
How are its chances?
Unknown, The will know after the sun reaches that side of the lander. Will take a couple of weeks...........................
Still a great accomplishment, becoming the fifth nation to successfully land on the moon. They will learn from the experience and fix the bugs.
(You’re supposed to say “slim”)
Who could have forecasted that batteries do not like cold weather?
It landed facing west instead of east and is on a slope.............
ðð............................
Slope of the crater they targeted.
Space is hard.
good job Japan!
They could have just kept pressing the Esc/Ctrl key and the F Keys until the battery died, where is their perseverance?
They should ask SpaceX for a spot on Falcon Heavy it can throw 13 metric tonnes on a transluner injection orbit. That much mass is enough for a skycrane hover rappel landing like the nuclear powered Mars rover the USA landed. Perseverance total launch mass was 3,600kg including it’s heat shield and skycrane rockets. Ditch the heat shield addin more prop for the skycrane stage to go from TLI velocity to zero/zero the rocket equation says you would need roughly equal mass of prop vs lander to slow from a TLI orbit to zero that’s not using the falcon stage to do your deorbit burn that’s hyperbolic transfer orbit direct to the surface no lunar orbit insertion aka a suicide burn which SpaceX has mastered they do suicide burns every time they land a booster over 200 times in a row and counting now they are the world leaders in landing anything rocket related.
Imagine a nuclear powered lunar rover the size of a VW passat that’s what Falcon Heavy could throw to the moon with mass to spare. Forget solar panels and dinky rivers send in the big dogs.
Japan shuts down its SLIM moon lander in hopes it will restart someday
= = =
In a Billion years, some atom and electron will mate, and evolve, and bye and bye start up that lander, and re-populate the moon, then the earth.
At least Japan is still Japanese.
I put my money on the Japs, very smart people. They don’t need diversity somehow.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.