Japan has become the fifth country to soft-land on the moon, but problems with the craft’s solar power system mean the mission may live for just a few hours. The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (Slim) is unmanned and currently reliant on its batteries that will eventually discharge. When they do, the craft will go silent. It won’t receive commands and it won’t be able to talk to Earth. Slim was carrying two small rovers and telemetry indicates it managed to eject these as planned just before touchdown, though engineers are doing all they can to fix Slim.
Japan has become the fifth nation to land a spacecraft on the moon. However, a power supply issue could significantly cut short its mission. –
Japan has become the fifth nation to land a spacecraft on the moon. However, a power supply issue could significantly cut short its mission. pic.twitter.com/EoUlf27cLk
— DW News (@dwnews) January 19, 2024
Japan becomes the 5th country in history to successfully land on the moon.
Japan becomes the 5th country in history to successfully land on the moon. pic.twitter.com/fKHLfrMY4H
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) January 20, 2024
- Japan became the fifth country to put a spacecraft on the moon, but solar power issues threatened to cut short the nation’s mission to prove a ‘precision’ landing technology and revitalize a space program that has suffered setbacks – Reuters
- Japan on Saturday became the fifth nation to achieve a soft lunar landing, but said its “Moon Sniper” spacecraft was running out of power due to a solar battery problem.
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