Although Japan’s first lunar lander ended in failure, another EQUEELEUS satellite that was also launched on the SLS rocket returned good news and successfully sent back photos of the back of the moon.
The EQUEELEUS satellite (Equilibrium Lunar-Earth point 6U) was jointly developed by the University of Tokyo and JAXA. It is one of the 10 secondary payloads of NASA’s Artemis 1 mission. It was deployed after the Orion spacecraft separated from the SLS rocket.
Although in the same batch of payloads, Japan’s first lunar lander named OMOTENASHI failed the mission because it could not establish contact, but JAXA confirmed that the EQUEELEUS satellite is operating in space. It flew over the moon on November 22 and took back photos of the back of the moon, showing Craters of various sizes.
The EQUEELEUS satellite will eventually travel to the L2 Lagrangian point of the Earth-Moon system, on a mission to scan the Earth’s plasma layer to understand how to protect humans and electronic equipment from radiation damage during long-distance space travel.
▲ EQUULEUS photographed the far side of the moon.
(Image Source:Equestrian/Twitter）