Images released Thursday showed Japan's lunar lander with its nose upright, its engines pointing into the pitch-black sky after landing on the moon.
According to the BBC, the first photos of the destroyed spacecraft show it rotated 90 degrees from its original resting state. I will report it.
This awkward, upside-down finish may help explain the difficulties it has since had in generating the power essential to accomplishing its mission.
The image was captured by a small baseball-sized robot called Sora-Q, which was ejected from the lander just before landing last Saturday.
JAXA Space Exploration Innovation Hub Center Associate Chief Scientist Daichi Hiruina (left) shows the lunar surface photographed and transmitted by the deformable lunar surface robot “SORA-Q” LEV-2 “SORA-Q” mounted on a private satellite. A lunar lander for the company's Smart Lander for Lunar Exploration (SLIM) mission held a press conference in Tokyo on January 25, 2024, after landing on the lunar surface on January 20. (Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP via Getty Images)
Japan's space agency JAXA said in a statement that “an abnormality in the main engine affected the spacecraft's landing attitude.”
One of the two large thrusters on board SLIM (Smart Lunar Survey Lander) appears to have stopped working during descent.
Most previous spacecraft used landing zones about six miles wide, but SLIM aimed at a target just 330 feet wide.
Improved accuracy will allow scientists to access more parts of the moon by allowing probes to be placed closer to obstacles.
official Said There is still hope that the spacecraft will be able to recharge when the lunar surface enters daylight in the coming days.
Japan became the fifth country in history to achieve a soft touchdown on the moon, after the Soviet Union, the United States, China, and India.
