by Japan is approaching its new Moon lander, but it appears to be experiencing technical problems, the country’s space agency said.
The country launched its “slim” spacecraft to the lunar surface, hoping to become only the fifth country to successfully land on the Moon. The lander arrived early Saturday morning Japan time, he said.
Since then, the spacecraft has been communicating with Earth. But his solar panels aren’t generating electricity — and his batteries are draining fast, he said.
It was not known exactly why the solar panels were failing to work, he said. It could be the result of the solar panels themselves failing, but it could also be the result of the spacecraft landing at the wrong angle so the panels wouldn’t face the Sun, representatives said space agency.
The Japanese space agency suggested it was unlikely to stay online, and was instead “maximizing the amount of science” it can collect from the Moon before those batteries run out.
But he said he was also working to gather as much data as possible about whether the spacecraft would be able to come back online. An update will be provided next week.
The space agency also hopes to gather more information to determine whether the Slim spacecraft has successfully landed on its very precise target. Japan referred to the slender spacecraft as the “Moon sniper” because it aimed to hit a target of 100 meters – rather than the usual kilometres.
Japan’s space agency said it considered it a successful “soft landing” on the surface because most of the spacecraft’s instruments were still working. If it had failed, its functions would have been completely lost, he argued.
If Slim lands successfully, Japan would become the fifth country to achieve the feat after the United States, the Soviet Union, China and India.
Many countries and private companies have tried and failed to land their own catches. The latest came last week, when a private space company launched its Falcon mission – which failed while in space, and fell back to Earth with a burn up in the atmosphere.
As the slim spacecraft descended, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency mission control said everything was going as planned and later said Slim was on the lunar surface.
But, after he was supposed to have arrived, there was no word on whether the landing was successful.
Mission control kept repeating that it was “checking her status” and that more information would be given at a news conference.
At that news conference, representatives from the Japanese space agency confirmed that communication had been received but that the spacecraft appeared to be losing power.
Slim began his descent at midnight on Saturday, and within 15 minutes he was down to about 10 kilometers (six miles) above the lunar surface, according to the space agency, known as JAXA.
At an altitude of five kilometers (three miles), the lander was in vertical descent mode, then at 50 meters (165 feet) above the surface, Slim was supposed to make a parallel movement to find a safe landing spot, JAXA said.
About half an hour after its supposed landing, JAXA said it was still checking the status of the landing.
A narrow is a light spacecraft, intended to reach a very small target, about the size of a passenger vehicle.
It was using “pinpoint landing” technology that promises far more control than any previous Moon landing.
While most previous probes used landing zones about 10 kilometers (six miles) wide, Slim was aimed at a target of just 100 meters (330 feet).
The project was the culmination of two decades of JAXA’s work on precision technology.
The main goal of the mission is to test new landing technology that would allow lunar missions to land “where we want, rather than where it’s easy to land”, JAXA said.
If the landing is successful, the spacecraft will look for clues about the moon’s origins, including analyzing minerals with a special camera.
A narrow, equipped with a pad to soften the impact, aimed to land near the Shioli crater, near a region covered with volcanic rock.
The close watch mission came just 10 days after a private US company’s Moon mission failed when the spacecraft developed a fuel leak hours after launch.
Slim was launched on a Mitsubishi Heavy H2A rocket in September.
It first orbited Earth and entered lunar orbit on December 25.
Japan hopes that success will help restore confidence in its space technology after several failures.
A spacecraft designed by a Japanese company crashed during a lunar landing attempt in April, and a new flagship rocket failed its first launch in March.
JAXA has a track record of difficult offloads.
Its Hayabusa2 spacecraft, launched in 2014, touched down twice on the 900-meter-long (3,000-foot-long) asteroid Ryugu, collecting samples that were sent back to Earth.
Experts say the success of Slim’s pinpoint landings, particularly on the Moon, would raise Japan’s profile in the global space technology race.
Slim is carrying two small autonomous probes – lunar excursion vehicles LEV-1 and LEV-2 – to be released just before landing.
LEV-1, equipped with an antenna and camera, is tasked with recording Slim’s landing.
LEV-2 is a ball-shaped rover equipped with two cameras, developed by JAXA together with Sony, toy maker Tomy and Doshisha University.
They appeared to have successfully released those, the agency said. They could send back data showing how the narrow spacecraft landed, he suggested.
Additional reporting from agencies
