Japan hopes to restore power to ‘Moon Sniper’
Al Jazeera
Space agency JAXA says its vessel could be revived thanks to an early shutdown, noting it has ‘lots’ of data.
The Japanese space agency has said it hopes to be able to restore power to its moon lander after it was “switched off” following a historic touchdown on Saturday.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said on Monday that it had switched off the vessel three hours after it landed to allow for a possible recovery of the craft when the sun hits its solar panels. It added that it hopes to be able to restore power to the probe, dubbed “Moon Sniper” for the craft’s precision landing capabilities.
JAXA also claimed to have already received “lots of” data from the unmanned Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) mission.
Moon Sniper’s touchdown made Japan the fifth country to achieve a soft lunar landing. However, after the touchdown at 20 minutes past midnight on Saturday (15:20 GMT, Friday), JAXA could not confirm that the lightweight craft’s solar batteries were generating power.
However, it later said the craft was switched off to have sufficient power to be able to restart the craft when conditions suited.
