Japan Space Craft on The Moon Resume Mission After Shutdown Due to Power Supply Crisis
Japan’s moon lander has resumed operations after being shutdown for a week due to a power supply issue.
The Japan aerospace exploration agency said it re-established contact with the lander Sunday night, indicating that the glitch had been fixed.
With the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) spacecraft, Japan became only the fifth country to achieve a soft touchdown on the moon after the us, the former Soviet Union, China and India.
Prior to Japan, India was the most recent nation to join the elite club of countries that have achieved this.
Its chandrayaan-3’s rover touched down near the lunar south pole in August 2023 – an area on the moon’s surface that no human had reached before.
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Earlier this month, a US spacecraft launched by a private operator ended its lunar mission in flames over the Pacific.
In August last year, Russia’s first lunar spacecraft in decades crashed into the moon after spinning out of control.
The SLIM mission came after several earlier attempts by Japan failed, including one by the start-up iSpace, which saw its lunar lander crash when its onboard computer became confused about its altitude above the Moon.
Jaxa could not immediately say until when SLIM will operate on the Moon. It has previously said the lander was not designed to survive a lunar night.
A lunar night, which is when the surface of the Moon is not exposed to the Sun, lasts about 14 days.
Statistically, it has proven very hard to land on the Moon. Only about half of all attempts have succeeded.
Prior to Japan, India was the most recent nation to join the elite club of countries that have achieved this. Its Chandrayaan-3’s rover touched down near the lunar south pole in August 2023 – an area on the Moon’s surface that no human had reached before.
