Japan's Moon Lander Overcomes Power Crisis, Starts Scientific Operations (theguardian.com) 35
Around three hours after its moon lander had touched down, Japan's space agency "decided to switch SLIM off with 12% power remaining to allow for a possible resumption when the sun's angle changed," reports Agence France-Presse.
Today there was good news: Japan's Moon lander has resumed operations, the country's space agency said on Monday, indicating that power had been restored after it was left upside down during a slightly haphazard landing. The probe, nicknamed the "moon sniper", had tumbled down a crater slope during its landing on 20 January, leaving its solar batteries facing in the wrong direction and unable to generate electricity...
The agency posted on X an image shot by Slim of "toy poodle", a rock observed near the lander.
Today there was good news: Japan's Moon lander has resumed operations, the country's space agency said on Monday, indicating that power had been restored after it was left upside down during a slightly haphazard landing. The probe, nicknamed the "moon sniper", had tumbled down a crater slope during its landing on 20 January, leaving its solar batteries facing in the wrong direction and unable to generate electricity...
The agency posted on X an image shot by Slim of "toy poodle", a rock observed near the lander.
Sugoi! (Score:1)
As the title says: Sugoi! (to tired to figure it I can sneak a unicode char into here)
BattleBots/Robotwars (Score:3)
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Full-body and overhead spinners still struggle with it.
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Full-body and overhead spinners still struggle with it.
But would they suffer from it in 1/6th gravity? Probably just need a robust arm to self right and it could have end effectors useful for doing experiments to boot. Just like the flippers can self right by using the flipper.
What's a solar battery? (Score:1)
Science reporting at its best...
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"Solar battery" is the traditional name for the shiny flat thing on some calculators, wrist watches and many other devices that converts solar energy into electric one.
I guess the phrase appeared when someone put "solar" in front of the dictionary definition of "battery": "a device that produces electricity to provide power for electronic devices, cars, etc." - https://dictionary.cambridge.o... [cambridge.org]
"Solar" is used, because it is the photons from the sun that generate the charge when they are absorbed by the thin
It most definitely ain't traditional (Score:4, Interesting)
Solar Panel is the traditional term. Solar PV Panel is the longer version. Solar Array is also used for bigger setups. PV panel and PV array are used too. Certainly not a battery!
What makes the battery a battery is its storage ability. The ability to later be a buffering supply. That ain't what a solar panel can do.
Re:It most definitely ain't traditional (Score:4, Interesting)
To be pedantic, what makes a battery a battery is the fact that it is composed of multiple items of the same size, shape and function. When Alessandro Volta built the first electric battery he adopted the name because it was a stack of single cells "in batteria", exactly as you would have a row of cannons set as an artillery battery. It also was not rechargeable, so it had no storage other than its initial potential. So I guess you could call a photovoltaic panel a photovoltaic cell battery just because the single cells are placed in series to increase the voltage potential, exactly as in the first chemical electrical battery.
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In French, a drum set to play percussion in music is literally called a "battery" because of the many drums composing it. The name can also be used in English apparently to mean "drum set" but I have never heard it used so far.
There is also batterie de cuisine, see English link below:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Yes, I know, it is a "battery" because it is usually composed of more than one "cells", like a battery of guns has more than one. I would assume the same rule applies to any bunch of things in some languages, although I'm not sure if this is so in Japanese, on which the translation above is based.
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I am pretty sure that Thomas Youngblood addressed their drummer as "the animal on the battery" it on Kamelot's One cold winter's night live DVD.
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Lolz I was about to answer the same thing to your parent.
But did not know about "Alessandro Volta", thanx.
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It most certainly is.
From the 50s, when they came about
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2... [jstor.org]
https://pubs.aip.org/aapt/ajp/... [aip.org]
https://aip.scitation.org/doi/... [scitation.org]
through the 60s and 70s
https://www.sciencedirect.com/... [sciencedirect.com]
https://www.osti.gov/biblio/65... [osti.gov]
Up to at least the 80s, 90s.
https://www.osti.gov/etdeweb/b... [osti.gov]
https://www.osti.gov/biblio/63... [osti.gov]
https://pubs.aip.org/aip/jap/a... [aip.org]
Maybe later, but I won't bother.
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"Battery" means an array of similar items. Thus, an artillary battery. Electric batteries got that name because they'd have multiple power sells, or multiple plates in a lead-acid battery Over time it was just shortened to "battery" to generally mean the electric type. Thus the 9V battery was really a battery, but your 1.5V AA battery is really a cell.
"Solar battery" could refer to either the electric storage for the solar panels, or the solar panel array itself.
Re:What's a solar battery? (Score:5, Informative)
A system consisting of a battery and solar panel(s). It's a term used in engineering quite often to describe that combination.
Note that the battery part doesn't have to be a traditional battery, it can also be a capacitor. Many calculators with "solar batteries" are a small panel and a capacitor.
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Note that the battery part doesn't have to be a traditional battery
Would this also apply to a robot with a solar cell and an arm that hits people?
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It's similar to the internal combustion battery in my car.
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You almost solved the conundrum about what to do regarding electric car mandates. We just need to build cars as we do trains, i.e. have the engine turn a generator which produces electricity to then drive the electric motors to propel it forward -- presto change, electric vehicle (i.e. EV).
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Add a battery and it would be a series hybrid - nowhere near as common as parallel hybrids (where the engine can also drive the wheels directly) but they do exist. With no battery, it's an ICE car with electric transmission - not usually done as there's no real advantage over a mechanical transmission for a car. It's used for trains as it's not easy to build a mechanical transmission that can provide handle the torque from a big locomotive.
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Diesel-electric also saves on wear and tear because all mechanical shocks from the diesel engine pistons are absorbed by the electric layer and not transmitted to the drivetrain. Very smooth with regards to wear and tear of the drivetrain.
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Somebody (VW?) made a diesel-electric powerplant for a car and EU told them, "no, we're phasing out diesel because it's dirty," and they were like, "no, look, this is cleaner than gas," and the bureaucrats were like, "diesel is dirty, it says right here on this paper and we're the experts, not you stupid automotive engineers."
It could have been flexible too - add a 20-mile battery, pick up induction or rail power, etc.
This is why we can't have nice things.
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Somebody (VW?) made a diesel-electric powerplant for a car and EU told them, "no, we're phasing out diesel because it's dirty," and they were like, "no, look, this is cleaner than gas," and the bureaucrats were like, "diesel is dirty, it says right here on this paper and we're the experts, not you stupid automotive engineers."
Well if it really was VW as you suggest, I can understand why the EU didn't believe them. Would anyone trust VW to tell the truth about diesel emissions? Remember dieselgate? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Yoshi! (Score:1)
We need more spherical space stations that do not assume a specific landing position!
Not Real Space Stations (Score:2)
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Yes, this one, for example, has mooned.
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Real space stations are not generally designed to remain operational after "landing" regardless of their shape or landing position.
Touche!
Too bad you can't revert to the VAB in real life. (Score:4, Funny)
Not upside down. (Score:3)
More like on its side, since it was supposed to land with its thrusters horizontal.
Maybe things aren't dire enough, but I wonder if the rovers could do anything to help the lander upright itself. Obvious risk in getting the rovers stuck and not sure if it's worth it with lunar night coming, but it would make for a fun rescue mission!
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Maybe things aren't dire enough, but I wonder if the rovers could do anything to help the lander upright itself.
Might not be worth the risk. If a change in the Sun's angle is sufficient to power the lander for some amount of time perhaps the best approach would be to leave it as is and re-plan its experiments around the revised power budget.
"slightly haphazard landing" (Score:1)
Slightly? It landed on its face! "I only slightly tripped and slightly kissed the pavement." Seems Japan has PHB's also.
It's not X (Score:2, Funny)
posted on X
That's not X, that's Twitter.com, or it's modern name "formerly Twitter". They're not X until they change their website to X and rename their tweets. At best they're xwitter. Even goatse.cx has a better claim to being X, at least it's in their URL.
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