Space News reports that Japan’s SLIM moon lander “has resumed operations more than a week after its imperfect yet historic lunar landing.” The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) “confirmed contact had been reestablished with the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) spacecraft late Jan. 28.” The development “comes just days ahead of a likely mission-ending sunset.” The large SUV-sized spacecraft “was forced to power down just two over hours after landing Jan. 19 due to its solar cell not generating electricity.” SLIM finally “powered up again as the position of the sun in the sky changed, finally illuminated SLIM’s solar cell.”
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Tag: JAXA
NASA Plans Commercial Partnerships on Moon Mission
Aviation Week reports that NASA “has every intention of leveraging commercial partnerships as it plans a return to the Moon with human explorers, according to those at the agency closely involved in laying the groundwork.”
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JAXA Confirms Sample is Inside Capsule Returned from Asteroid Ryugu
The AP/CBS News reports that the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) “said Monday it has confirmed the presence of black soil samples inside a capsule that the spacecraft Hayabusa2 brought back from” asteroid Ryugu last week. JAXA “said its scientists opened the capsule and found an unspecified amount of sandy black particles.” Scientists “are hoping the asteroid’s subsurface samples can provide information from billions of years ago unaffected by space radiation and other environmental factors.” JAXA scientists “say they are particularly interested in organic materials in the samples to learn about how they were distributed in the solar system and if they are related to life on Earth.” Following “studies in Japan for about a year, some of the samples will be shared with NASA and other international groups for additional research beginning in 2022.”
Full Story (CBS News)