Japan’s lunar lander completed a successful touchdown on the moon’s surface just after midnight on Jan. 20, but a technical issue has made it uncertain whether the mission will achieve all of its goals.
Japan became just the fifth country to land a craft on the moon, after the U.S., Russia, China and India.
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency officials said they have good reason to believe that the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, spacecraft made a soft landing and achieved its goal of a high-precision landing, though they said they will need more time to confirm whether the lander achieved the goal of landing within 100 meters of its target site.
“The data are continually being sent to the Earth now after landing, which is evidence that our goal of a soft landing has been achieved,” JAXA President Hiroshi Yamakawa told a news conference at the agency’s campus in Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, on Jan. 20.
JAXA officials, however, said that the solar panels on the lander were not generating power and the lander was being powered by its onboard battery, which would only last for a few more hours.
Asked by a reporter to rate the mission’s performance, Hitoshi Kuninaka, director general of JAXA’s Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, said: “I would give 60 points out of 100 ー we barely passed the test.” (The Japan Times)
毎週届く！
