Japan's Moon Sniper lands accurately...then tumbles upside down
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JAXA had labeled the probe's landing mission as a success stating that it opened a door to a new area.
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Shinichiro Sakai, the Project Manager for SLIM, speaks during a press conference on updates on the status of its spacecraft, including whether it successfully made a "pinpoint landing" on the Moon, January 25, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP)
The Japanese space agency has stated that "Moon Sniper" made a historic “pinpoint” landing on the surface of the moon at the weekend but there is a slight issue: the images being sent back suggest the probe is lying upside-down.
After the US, Russia, China, and India, Japan became only the fifth country to put a craft on the lunar surface when its Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (Slim) landed on Saturday.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) provided data showing that the probe landed 55 meters from the target site, between two craters, in a region of volcanic rock. However, it is still unclear if this was the initially intended landing site due to trouble with the probe’s solar batteries.
Most previous probes aimed for much wider touchdown zones measuring up to 10 kilometers in width, however, Japanese officials announced that the landing had been made with unprecedented precision.
The Japanese probe was aiming at a 100-meter-wide target, and if one of its engines hadn't lost thrust and in turn landed harder than anticipated, JAXA stated the probe would probably have been within three to four meters of its intended target.
Upside-down
However, “Moon sniper”, the probe, tumbled down a crater slope, leaving its solar batteries facing in the wrong direction and unable to generate electricity. Regardless, it was labeled as a successful mission by Japanese space officials. They added that JAXA prioritized transmitting landing data before Slim’s battery ran out, hence there was a chance that Moon Sniper would be able to recharge in the coming days once the west side of the moon sees sunlight.
JAXA hopes to explore the mystery of the moon’s possible water resources by analyzing the rocks, as it is vital to building bases there one day as possible stopovers on the way to Mars. In addition, Japan, after a series of failures, is hopeful that this mission will boost its space program.
In April, a spacecraft designed by a Japanese company crashed during a lunar landing attempt. Before that, in March, a new flagship rocket failed during its debut launch.
Slim was launched in September and orbited Earth before entering lunar orbit on Christmas Day.
Meet "Moon Sniper"
Japan had launched its "Moon Sniper" mission to become the fifth country to safely land on the lunar surface, and the first to do so with exceptional precision.
Japan's space agency, JAXA, emphasized that the Slim lander represents a significant advancement in precision landing capabilities, allowing for targeted landings on celestial bodies with significant gravity, going beyond the moon. No previous instances of pinpoint landings on such celestial bodies have been recorded globally.
In addition to Slim, the XRISM satellite, launched on the same rocket, will conduct high-resolution X-ray spectroscopic observations of hot gas plasma winds in galaxies throughout the universe.
