<
https://www.npr.org/2024/01/18/1225328376/japan-moon-landing-robot-transformers-jaxa>
'Japan has pulled off one of the hardest tricks in space exploration: a soft
landing on the moon. Its "Moon Sniper" mission settled onto the moon's surface
Friday morning. But JAXA, the Japanese space agency, says that while the lander
is communicating with Earth, it's not getting power from its solar panels.
"SLIM [for Smart Lander for Investigating Moon] has been communicating to the
Earth station and it is receiving commands from the Earth accurately and the
spacecraft is responding to these in a normal way," said Hitoshi Kuninaka,
director general of Japan's Institute of Space and Astronautical Science.
"However, it seems that the solar cell is not generating electricity at this
point in time," Kuninaka said. "And since we are not able to generate
electricity," he added, operations are relying on battery power.
Kuninaka said that as planned, the lander had deployed two small lunar probes —
including a small robot designed by the company that invented Transformers,
which is now roving the lunar surface.'
Via Kenny Chaffin.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
