A photo of the lunar lander lying on its side. — © EPA-EFE
Images have emerged of Japan’s lunar lander landing just 55 meters from its destination on January 19. Despite the fact that the colossus ended up on its side, space organization JAXA calls it a successful landing.
Thursday January 25, 2024 at 5:10 PM
On Friday, January 19, the Japanese space agency JAXA sent its unmanned lunar lander into space. It landed on the same day just 55 meters from its destination, which is extremely accurate in terms of space travel.
The cube-shaped lunar lander is about 2.5 meters high and weighs about 200 kilograms. The aim was to land the aircraft no more than 100 meters from the designated location. And even that was ambitious, because in space travel a radius of several kilometers is usually set for these types of operations. So the landing was very precise.
Although the spacecraft landed accurately, it fell on its side. This is probably the result of the failure of one of the two main engines. The lunar lander cannot currently generate solar energy, probably due to the tilt. JAXA hopes that generating solar energy will still be possible in the coming week, when the sun sets on the landing site.
This photo was taken by the lunar lander itself. The malfunction is the result of the scanning operation being interrupted — © AFP