Japan's Moon Lander Survived a 354-Hour Lunar Night. Now It Faces a Second One (space.com) 11
It completed the most precise landing ever on the moon — albeit upside-down. And then it faced a "lunar night" lasting about two weeks where temperatures drop to -270 degrees Fahrenheit, reports the Times of India.
But then, "Despite not being designed for the extreme temperatures, SLIM surprised scientists by coming back to life after the two-week-long lunar night." More from Space.com: The lander woke up on February 26 during extremely hot temperatures of 212 Fahrenheit (100 Celsius) in its region and has been making contact here and there with Earth in the days since. Most recently, SLIM attempted observations with its multiband spectroscopic camera, but "it did not work properly," JAXA officials wrote. "This seems to be due to the effects of overnight," the update continued, referring to the frigid two-week-long lunar night that SLIM experienced before the sun shone near Shioli crater again. "But we will continue to investigate based on the data we have obtained for the next opportunity...."
"We received so much support for our operations after the lunar night," the agency posted on social media — adding "thank you!"
The Times of India reports that "JAXA officially announced SLIM's return to a dormant state on March 1, sharing an image of the lunar surface captured by the probe."
Above the photo, JAXA posted this hopeful message. "Although the probability of a failure increases with the repeated severe temperature cycles, SLIM operation will attempt to resume when the sun rises (late March). #GoodAfterMoon."
And Space.com notes that "Despite all, SLIM has met both main and extended mission objectives: Landing precisely on the moon, deploying two tiny rovers and conducting science with its navigation camera and its spectroscopic camera, particularly searching for signs of olivine on the surface."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo for sharing the news.
But then, "Despite not being designed for the extreme temperatures, SLIM surprised scientists by coming back to life after the two-week-long lunar night." More from Space.com: The lander woke up on February 26 during extremely hot temperatures of 212 Fahrenheit (100 Celsius) in its region and has been making contact here and there with Earth in the days since. Most recently, SLIM attempted observations with its multiband spectroscopic camera, but "it did not work properly," JAXA officials wrote. "This seems to be due to the effects of overnight," the update continued, referring to the frigid two-week-long lunar night that SLIM experienced before the sun shone near Shioli crater again. "But we will continue to investigate based on the data we have obtained for the next opportunity...."
"We received so much support for our operations after the lunar night," the agency posted on social media — adding "thank you!"
The Times of India reports that "JAXA officially announced SLIM's return to a dormant state on March 1, sharing an image of the lunar surface captured by the probe."
Above the photo, JAXA posted this hopeful message. "Although the probability of a failure increases with the repeated severe temperature cycles, SLIM operation will attempt to resume when the sun rises (late March). #GoodAfterMoon."
And Space.com notes that "Despite all, SLIM has met both main and extended mission objectives: Landing precisely on the moon, deploying two tiny rovers and conducting science with its navigation camera and its spectroscopic camera, particularly searching for signs of olivine on the surface."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo for sharing the news.
Technically, yes, but (Score:5, Informative)
Several Apollo missions landed pretty close, same orders of magnitude. Apollo 12 landed within easy walking distance of Surveyor 3 -about 500 feet (160ish "meters" ), Apollo 15 was within hundreds of feet of the targeted landing site. 11 was pretty far off, but one part of the Sea of Tranquility looks pretty much like any other. Interestingly, Armstrong pretty accurately judged how far downrange they were going to land 20-30 minutes beforehand by looking at timing various landmarks.
Re:Technically, yes, but (Score:5, Informative)
The technical achievement of precision landing by a robot is impressive. Since there is no satellite navigation on the Moon, robots have to rely on the same sensors that humans did - including their eyes.
SLIM used cameras to take images of the horizon and the ground, and then used machine vision to update its position estimate based on them. It's the first time it has ever been done.
Another massive achievement was doing all this despite the loss of an engine. Other robotic probes couldn't cope with the loss of one major control element, but SLIM's software was able to still land with great precision despite losing its x-axis thruster.
The other big achievement was landing on a slope. All prior landings, including Apollo and the Soviet and Chinese rovers, landed on level ground. While it did tip over, it did actually plan to tip and then right itself. The big thing was coping with the slope when coming down to the landing site, during final navigation.
Re: (Score:3)
Super accurate landing exactly where they wanted?
Yep.
In a place where the conditions are too hash for the craft to function?
In a place where the conditions are to harsh for the craft to function at night. Surviving the night wasn't the design objective; it was designed to land in the lunar morning, and accomplish its objectives in the ~14 days before the sun set.
Now, it's definitely possible to design a spacecraft to survive over the lunar night, but it's going to take a lot more effort, and that would make it more expensive and take more time to develop. The objective here was to demonstrate the landing. One step at a time.
Re: (Score:3)
One of the reasons why the Ingenuity Mars-copter was only expected to make 5 flights was because it was not thought to be able to survive the Martian winter. Curiosity has internal heaters to deal with the cold, but Ingenuity didn't have that capacity so was expected to fail fairly quickly. Instead it completed 72 flights until it was apparently disabled by a landing incident which broke one of the rotors. This is encouraging for future missions which will have to deal with extreme cold.
Re: (Score:1)
a tall Fahrenlow.
Re: (Score:2)
Driveness.
Re: (Score:2)
Cow Tipping [Re:I'm not saying it's aliens] (Score:1)
So they switched to the moooon?