Scientists and space enthusiasts in Japan and beyond celebrated as the nation’s lunar lander completed a successful touchdown on the moon’s surface, but questions remain over whether the mission can achieve all of its goals.
With the landing, Japan becomes 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 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.
“We think we have succeeded in executing a soft landing,” JAXA President Hiroshi Yamanaka told a news conference at the agency’s Sagamihara campus held in the wee hours of the morning. “The data are continually sent to the Earth now after landing, which is evidence that our goal of a soft landing has been achieved.”
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 will only last for a matter of hours.
They added that the lack of electricity from solar panels may limit the duration of the lander’s activities, but said they would do their best to accomplish as much as they can with the power they have. The end of battery power does not mean the end of the mission, the officials stressed.
Officials do not believe the solar panels were damaged during the landing given the rest of the spacecraft is intact, and noted that as the angle of the sun changes in the weeks ahead, the panels may start generating electricity.
Had the solar panels been working properly, the lander would have been able to operate for “several days,” before the panels suffered damage from the moon’s daytime temperatures, which can rise to about 100 degrees Celsius, the officials said.
JAXA President Hiroshi Yamanaka (right) speaks during a news conference alongside other JAXA officials on Saturday after the agency’s lander touched down on the moon.
| Kyodo
Tensions rose at midnight Saturday as the spacecraft began its final descent, dubbed the “20 minutes of terror,” in the closely watched last stage of the spacecraft’s four-month journey to the moon.
At around 12:20 a.m., as people watched from around the world, the spacecraft nicknamed the “Moon Sniper” successfully landed on the lunar surface.
The touchdown on the moon — which has one-sixth of the Earth’s gravity — gives a much-needed boost to Japan’s space program, which has experienced a series of setbacks in recent years including the launch failure of its H3 flagship rocket in March 2023.
Another JAXA official expressed hope that the mission will encourage younger generations to aim high in whatever they aspire to do.
“To land on the moon is an extremely difficult challenge,” said Masaki Fujimoto, deputy director general of JAXA’s Institute of Space and Astronautical Science.
“I want children to tackle challenging projects such as this and pursue their own interests.”
People celebrate after a successful moon landing by the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, at a public viewing event in Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, on Saturday.
| Reuters