Japan’s moon landing picture might be the space photo of the decade | Mashable.
Japan’s moon landing picture might be the space photo of the decade
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| A moon rover that traveled aboard Japan's spacecraft to the lunar surface shows the lander upside down. Credit: JAXA |
A photo of Japan's robotic moon lander shows that though the spacecraft did make the quarter-million-mile journey to the lunar surface, it landed upside down.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency — NASA's Japanese space counterpart known as JAXA — released the image Jan. 25, five days after it descended onto the moon. Shortly after touchdown, the mission team for SLIM — short for Smart Lander for Investigating the Moon — realized the spacecraft's solar panels weren't making electricity.
Seeing the golden ship in such a precarious position, yet somehow not shattered into pieces, comes as perhaps a startling reminder of just how difficult it is to get on the lunar surface, even 60 years after the first uncrewed moon landings.
Face-planting on the moon wasn't part of the plan, but the JAXA team said data confirms the spacecraft achieved its main goal of a so-called "pinpoint landing" — that is, a landing with an accuracy of less than 100 meters, or under 100 yards. Given that most landing targets are many square-miles in scope, this demonstrates an unprecedented level of precision. The lander was at most 10 meters off its mark, according to space agency officials, which is comparable to 11 yards or less.
"The pinpoint landing performance was evaluated to be at approximately 10m or less, possibly about 3 - 4m," according to JAXA in a statement.
Japan is the fifth nation to land on the moon, following the former Soviet Union, the United States, China, and India. But JAXA controllers soon realized after the landing that their mission was in peril, with the spacecraft quickly losing battery life.
Because of the lander's now-apparent inverted position, its solar panels weren't oriented correctly to generate power, according to the space agency. The team elected to conserve power by shutting down the spacecraft about 2.5 hours after landing.
What's perhaps as surprising as the photo of the lander is how it was taken. Two small rovers separated from the crewless mothership just prior to touchdown. It was one of these baseball-sized robots that was able to snap the image of the spacecraft with its head in the moondust.
The rover, built with the help of Japanese toy maker Takara Tomy, is a sphere that splits in half to expose a pair of cameras that point front and back. The two hemispheres also become the rover wheels.
"The company is perhaps most famous for originally creating the Transformers, the alien robots that can disguise themselves as machines," said Elizabeth Tasker, who provided commentary on the moon landing in English on Jan. 20.
The space agency still isn't entirely sure what went wrong. At about 55 yards above the ground, the spacecraft performed an obstacle avoidance maneuver, part of the pinpoint-landing demonstration. Just prior to this step, one of the two main engines stopped thrusting, throwing the lander's orientation off. JAXA is continuing to investigate what caused the engine problem.
Landing on the moon remains onerous, with less than half of attempts succeeding. The moon's exosphere — an extremely thin atmosphere of gasses barely held by the moon's gravity — provides virtually no drag to slow a spacecraft down as it approaches the ground. Furthermore, there are no GPS systems on the moon to help guide a craft to its landing spot.
For the pinpoint landing, the SLIM spacecraft was outfitted with photo-matching technology to determine its location. The matching algorithm only requires a few seconds to figure out where the spacecraft is and whether it needs to correct its course.
Despite the fact that the spacecraft is now sleeping, the SLIM team hasn't lost hope for a recovery. With solar panels facing west, the lander still has a chance of catching some rays and generating power. If the angle of sunlight changes, SLIM could still be awakened, mission officials said.
That would have to happen soon, though. Night will fall on the moon on Feb. 1, bringing about freezing temperatures. The spacecraft was not built to withstand those conditions.
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Aww man. We should just offer Japan our telemetry data…oops our bad… the greatest achievement of mankind and Otto the night janitor “accidentally” misplaced, then lost it all. Oh well. Keep trying.
ReplyDeleteHollywood makes movies 🎬 ask the director 😆
ReplyDeleteSeems like it would be easier to land softly on something made of green cheese.
ReplyDeleteJapan's lunar flight was a failure. Stop pretending. It's useless. So was India's - another bunch of propaganda. Only China has succeeded in the moon projects.
ReplyDeleteReaching your target from a quarter of a million miles away is not a failure. There are plenty of space failures happening right here.
ReplyDeleteElon’s SpaceX plans to land one of his big tall rockets on the moon. I just hope the lunar surface is strong enough to hold its weight and that it doesn’t land on a non-level spot and topple over.
ReplyDeleteIf it does he's learned something and will figure out how to deal with it on the next one.
DeleteI just hope it isn't equipped with the Tesla Autopilot feature...
DeleteAmerica's space supremacy remains unchallenged.
ReplyDeleteThe only country to land a man on another planet.
Respectfully I note that Earth’s orbiting neighbor is currently considered to be a moon and not a planet.. But, Trillio, time is on your side. The Moon is slowly increasing its orbital distance from Earth. So, at some point in the future the mutual center of mass (the barycenter) of the Earth/Moon system will have moved outside of Earth’s body. The Moon will then be considered a planet and humans will be living within a double-planet system (if we have not killed ourselves off by then).
DeleteOnce the Moon becomes a planet we should rename it. Perhaps “Luna” as a call-back to its younger days when it was a moon.
This is a typical DEI comment. The moon becomes elevated to planetary status because Luna is female, all the while Pluto has become disenfranchised and demoted, merely because it is a male white dwarf, marginalized to the outer fringes of the solar system and expelled to the Kuiper Belt.
DeleteWhat a disgrace!
It's a good thing this was an unmanned flight.
ReplyDeleteWhile the US and NASA aren't perfect, they've been able to safely land and return people, the ultimate explorers.
Noobs
ReplyDeleteIf only the spacecraft had been spherical.
ReplyDeleteWhat a heartbreak for a craft to get to the moon only to land on its side. Still a good achievement but could have been great. Congratulations and condolences to Japan. Well done. Sort of.
ReplyDeleteI'd love it if the U.S. had a larger craft there that could go do any necessary repositioning of the Japanese craft, in a true showing of international cooperation. (-: Good for Japan, in any case.
ReplyDeleteSo much for the "perfect landing" that I kept reading about.... which in old gymnastics scoring would be a 10... but well done for "landing on the moon".
ReplyDeleteIt's like a participation award for school children.
DeleteThey should have hired one of those dorks from BattleBots to design a self righting mechanism.
ReplyDeleteLanding on a flat spot, no matter how far from the target, would have been better.
ReplyDeleteA pinpoint landing, the main goal, was achieved even with one engine failure. The landing was within 150 feet after traveling 240,000 miles. The craft was supposed to end up on its side, but the position was off. Both probes still were able to be deployed and moved with a unique hopping way of propulsion. What happens after the initial landing placement was just frosting on the cake. Congratulations, Japan!
ReplyDeleteWhat exactly was the purpose of this mission, to see if the moon is still not made of green cheese?
ReplyDeleteNope - looking for Hillary's emails.
DeleteLooking for trump's brain!
Delete"Because it's there!"
DeleteA good reason.
Delete“The landing was within 180 feet of its goal, an impact precise enough to be hailed as a major accomplishment.”
ReplyDeleteUnited States — 11 successful moon landings
Soviet Union — 8 successful moon landings
China — 3 successful moon landings
India — 1 successful moon landing
Japan’s feeble effort is a footnote in history.
None of the early US or Soviet landings were that precise. You also don't list the number of failed missions for each country.
DeleteCongratulations to Japan for a semi-successful mission.
And the US landings were manned lunar landers AND the astronauts returned to Earth safely which is hardly insignificant.
DeleteThe U.S. also landed the unmanned Surveyors - several successes and a couple of failures - but Surveyor was a much larger program than SLIM.
DeleteJAXA deserves accolades for the precision navigation, successful auxiliary probes, and a lander that wasn’t destroyed even after a thruster failure. Hopefully, they can get enough sunlight to reactivate it and get some science.
Woops , I guess they won't be able to do the important work to save the good planet now . Can they still pick up rocks ?
ReplyDeleteThis was a failure, no matter which way one tries to spin it. The spacecraft does not simply have land in the intended location; it has to land in its intended attitude to be able to perform the planned functions:experiments.
ReplyDeletemore trash that will never go away
ReplyDeleteWell go and pick it up then, instead of complaining.
DeleteRight , quit yer crying , and just walk to the moon .
DeleteJapan accomplished more with this, than the Crimlen will in Ukraine.
ReplyDeleteVlad, a waste of flesh, a killing meat grinder.
Maybe it's just resting.
ReplyDeleteActually, I think it’s pining.
DeleteMight be pining, but definitely not pinging.
DeleteLeave the moon in peace. It doesn't deserve our kind of attention, which despoils just about every natural object of wonder.
ReplyDeleteOur species harms: the rain forest is being mowed down; oceans are full of plastic; birds and insects are declining in number. We only know to harm.
Leave the moon alone.
It's a rock. It's surface area is 25% larger than Africa.
DeleteThe moon doesn't care. It's essentially a giant rock.
DeleteNot only a giant rock but one whose surface bears a remarkable resemblance to the aftermath of a nuclear war.
DeleteWho is going to up there and clear out all that junk? Somebody better get on it soon or they'll run out of places to land.
ReplyDeleteIt's a secret humanity project to transfer mass to the Moon and slow it's departure from Earth orbit.
Delete/s
Such a complete waste of earth's flagging resources. Our planet has issues that can not be resolved by spending money on the moon.
ReplyDeleteNor can they be resolved by spending on football, baseball, theater, movies, travel, food out of season......
DeleteSo you’re saying dad was right when he told us to turn the music off and get back to work?
DeleteYour dad told you that? My dad wanted to relive his youth. His jeans and t-shirt uniform was icky.
DeleteMany of these developing technologies will benefit humans on earth, many space race developments already have. In the (near) future Lunar resources will benefit all of us.
DeleteGreen cheese mining for bagel enthusiasts?
DeleteThis argument has never made sense. Quite apart from the knowledge gained by space exploration, canceling all space efforts would not magically direct the money or brainpower to solving Earth’s problems - which cannot be solved by technology alone anyway.
DeleteThey cannot be solved by filling out paper forms either, but the government spends more on paper forms than it does exploring the Moon.
DeleteI think the money was mostly spent in Japan.
DeleteThe US did this multiple times with 60's tech. Maybe the other countries should rely more on low tech reliable systems.
ReplyDeleteThe US failed multiple times. Heck we even failed in the launch phase (I'm still searching for the 2nd stage ignition while attached to the 1st stage video).
DeleteIn what lunar mission did "we fail in the launch phase"?
DeleteNYT reports that the craft is upside down but was supposed to be on its side so the solar panels could be correctly positioned. Now the mission may be severely limited because of the incorrect orientation.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was upside down, as well, but it’s on its side. There’s a video here that shows how it was supposed to perform and its intended post-landing orientation:
Deletehttps://www.space.com/japan-moon-landing-success-slim-spacecraft
Weebles wobble but……
ReplyDeleteThe latest example of quiet quitting.
ReplyDeleteThe photos I saw show it upside down not on its side.
ReplyDeletePhotos elsewhere which depict the vehicle after landing suggest it's on it's side.
DeleteI thought as you do. But the images suggest the surface the engines are mounted on should be vertical, not horizontal as we usually think of them.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/jan/19/japan-slim-spacecraft-lands-on-moon-but-struggles-to-generate-power
Maybe the spacecraft just decided to be part of the "lying down" phenomenon among young people in Japan, China, South Korea, etc.
ReplyDeleteWell, this is embarrassing... Someone somewhere in Japan must be feeling a little silly...:-)
ReplyDelete"Hurt in a crash that wasn't your fault? You may be entitled to substantial compensation
ReplyDelete..Call 800....."
Well.....I reckon we will see strip mines on the moon in future. OK...who wants to see the moon anyway.....Musk and Starlink will obscure the skies.....No worries....money is to be made.
ReplyDeleteThat seems more than a little farfetched.
DeleteIt does not.
DeleteThe fact that Elon Musk is going to be able to launch so many satellites for Starlink into space that it'll blot out the sky??? Yes, it does seem farfetched; and I was being overly kind; it's absolutely ludicrous. And on top that there is no reason to do so.
DeleteThe tip over does not negate some very impressive accomplishments: a precision landing, and a soft landing at that, together with successful deployment of an auxiliary lander.
ReplyDeleteOne hopes that the changing Sun angle will indeed allow the vehicle to charge back up and operate. I have no idea, but it’s fun to speculate that they could attempt a tip-up with the attitude thrusters.
Anytime someone can launch a thing to the moon and land without it exploding is miraculous to me.
DeleteMaybe Ultraman and Gigantor can fly to the moon and set it upright!
ReplyDeleteI vote for Gigantor.
Delete25 years from now, it will be a tourism excursion. I am formulating a t-shirt slogan to sell at the site.
ReplyDeleteGive 'em a break. The Japanese are new at this.
ReplyDeleteOnly in the 21st Century is landing on your side hailed as a success. If it had landed upright and 2500 feet from target, what would that have been?
ReplyDeletePerhaps they should not of had it bao, before landing on the moon.
ReplyDeleteWhat happens when a very polite society builds a space robot that has an attitude problem?
ReplyDeleteIt runs away from home because it thinks mummy and dada don't love it. It flys off to Jupiter, gets a tattoo, and orbits there forever.
DeleteSpace may be the final frontier, but it's made in a Hollywood basement.
ReplyDeleteThe Ruzzians still hold the title for fastest collision with the moon. Something for the Republicans to cheer.
ReplyDeleteThat's a shame.
ReplyDelete.. the spacecraft ended up “in a different attitude than planned.”
ReplyDelete.. truly an understatement .. someone has a sense of humor ..
Sounds like the spacecraft has an attitude problem.
Delete.. that is a good comment also ..
Deletespace junk
ReplyDeleteFolks are dunking on the Japanese lunar lander for "failure," but I think it's more like Apollo 13-style success.
ReplyDeleteThat spacecraft lost horizontal control thruster at an altitude of 160 feet, and STILL managed to land intact (albeit on its side) within 180 feet of its target - and it successful deployed two probes LEV-1 and LEV-2 that sent back a photograph of the whole thing.
That's incredible!
One suggestion for a design improvement to landers would be emergency detachment/deployment of the solar cells or the housing that contains the unfolded panels within - like an ejection seat - perhaps still connected to the main craft by long wires. That way however the lander touched down or fell over, at least partial power production could occur.
Agreed.
DeleteLying on it’s side like Biden’s domestic and int’l efforts.
ReplyDeleteLying in your comment like a whining Trumper.
DeleteHmm. Not really. Are you frustrated that the economy is doing so well?
Deletelost cause, bro
DeleteYou’re right. Kamala most definitely is.
Deleteso much stupid, so little brain
DeleteGimmee, please provide the class a quote from the article, which refers to President Biden. Thank you.
DeleteI would tell you unemployment is near record low but you still wouldn’t find a job. 401k’s are worth more today than ever, but you don’t have one. So Biden’s “domestic efforts” are only bad for you, and good for everyone else.
DeleteLike you lying on your side in mom's basement
DeleteMaxwell Smart: "Missed it by THAT much ! Sorry about that, Chief."
ReplyDeleteGreat. More space junk on the moon. At least the human remains NASA commissioned are now flying through space. Only one planet where anything should be buried.
ReplyDeleteNot NASA.
Delete"the spacecraft was able to touch down just about 180 feet east of its landing site..." That's damn impressive, tipped over or not!
ReplyDelete“…the spacecraft ended up ‘in a different attitude than planned.’”
ReplyDeleteFell over, is the colloquialism they’re looking for.
But congratulations - only geniuses can make this happen.
To be fair, it may have additionally experienced a modicum of azimuthal disruption.
Delete"...experienced a modicum of azimuthal disruption."
DeleteMan, I just hate it when that happens....
My view is that we do not have the moral right to be leaving junk there. Just leave the place alone. It's not the planet that we were born into.
ReplyDeleteIt not a planet.
DeleteNo one said it was.
DeleteAhh, Vagabond Rambler actually did…
DeleteAnonymous guy, let me quote what Vagabond wrote, "It's not the planet we were born into". I would say that that qualifies as referring to the moon as a "planet".
DeleteVagabond did, reading is hard...
DeleteThe hair-splitting vocabulary semantics don't change the substance of my point. If we are planning to live there and colonizing it then we are treating it as a planet, and/or for all intensive purposes, turning it into a planet. We are a destructive species who need to stay on our own planet. And if we really wanted to split hairs, my sentence was referring to earth as the planet that we were born into.
DeleteIt's not a planet regardless of whether or not we live there, plan to live there and or are colonizing it. We have no ability to turn it into a planet at this point and probably ever; to do so would take an unimaginable amount of energy.
DeleteOur solar system, close enough.
DeleteI don't know why it would be immoral to leave something on the moon. I don't really see how morals play into it at all.
DeleteStop messing with the moon. Leave it alone. We don’t need to mine the moon. Let’s destroy the tides, women’s historical menstruation trends, and with it the entirety of life on Earth for some greed. Or, let’s not. Leave the moon alone.
ReplyDeleteThe Moon is breaking up with us... at around 4 cm per year.
DeleteDude, please cite peer reviewed studies that show we are destroying "women's historical menstruation trends".
DeleteHuman activity has no effect whatsoever on the Moon’s tidal influences.
DeleteWell, we just made Earth’s moon a little heavier and Earth a little lighter, so tides will be both higher and lower. Don’t buy any beachfront property.
DeleteWhoopsie!
ReplyDeleteThat photo is so sad!
ReplyDeleteSad is Venera 14. Russia's lander on Venus. It had a camera and a soil sampler.
DeleteThe camera popped off it's protective cover.
The soil sampler dropped down...on to the lens cover.
https://www.planetary.org/space-images/venus-surface-panorama-from-venera-14-camera-2
Can't anyone land a craft on the moon anymore?
ReplyDeleteAnd we want to talk of send people back there? People?? Are you kidding me! People!?!?
The Chinese space program.
DeleteThe Japanese did land a craft on the moon as you can see from the photo. India landed on the moon just last year.
DeleteSure. If you call on its side a landing.
DeleteI do, because that is a landing. As was the Indian landing.
DeleteWhy do we need to go back? Been there. Done that.
DeleteMost newer attempts to land on the Moon are significantly less expensive than the U.S. and then-USSR robotic landers of the 1960s and 70s. They are trying out new technologies, and learning from the failures.Another point to consider is that robotic landers generally aren’t designed to abort a landing if it goes awry - capability included and tested on Apollo - and have much less redundancy.
DeleteOoops
ReplyDeleteHarder than it looks isn't it? Maybe its the metric system.
ReplyDeleteA remarkable picture.
ReplyDelete