International Peregrine One: American Moon Mission Ends in Failure

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Japan lands on Moon but glitch threatens mission

It becomes only the fifth country to soft-land on the Moon but power supply problems may hinder its mission.

www.bbc.co.uk

Japan lands on Moon but glitch threatens mission​

A Japanese robot has successfully touched down on the Moon but problems with its solar power system mean the mission may live for just a few hours.
The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (Slim) put itself gently on the lunar surface near an equatorial crater.
The feat made the Asian nation only the fifth country to soft-land on Earth's natural satellite, after the US, the Soviet Union, China and India.
Engineers are now battling to save the mission, however.
For reasons not yet fully understood, the craft's solar cells will not generate electricity.
This leaves Slim totally reliant on its batteries and these will eventually discharge. When they do, the craft will go silent. It won't receive commands and it won't be able to talk to Earth.
Engineers are currently prioritising activities.
They've turned off heaters and are pulling down pictures from the craft. They're also retrieving data that will tell them how well the landing software worked.
Japanese space agency (Jaxa) officials will not immediately give up on Slim if it does fall silent. It's always possible the solar cells have somehow become oriented in a way that prevents them from seeing the Sun.
As light angles change on the Moon, it was possible Slim could come back to life, the officials said.

Statistically, it's proven very hard to land on the Moon. Only about a half of all attempts have succeeded.
Jaxa put its faith in new precision-navigation technologies.
The lander's onboard computer used rapid image processing and crater mapping to avoid hazards to reach its touchdown point.
Engineers had wanted to get within 100m (330ft) of their targeted location and will now be studying data to see how well Slim performed. But the early indications are that the technologies worked as designed.
"Looking at the trace data, I believe that Slim most certainly achieved a pinpoint landing with 100m accuracy. Of course, as we informed you in advance, it would take about a month to analyse the information accurately," Mr Kuninaka said.
Slim began its descent manoeuvres from an altitude of 15km (9 miles) at midnight into Saturday, Japan Standard Time (15:00 GMT, Friday). Touchdown occurred just after 15:20 GMT.
The landing location, near Shioli Crater, is currently bathed in sunlight but the darkness of lunar night will return there at the end of the month.
When that happens, temperatures will plummet to levels that are very capable of breaking electronic circuit boards.

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Nice!

Japan got there, but a bit of a glitch...