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Lost in space! Japan gives up on becoming the fourth country to land on the moon after the lunar probe launched aboard Artemis I went dark – the craft’s solar cells were pointed AWAY from the sun
- Japan’s OMOTENASHI launched Wednesday aboard NASA’s Artemis I mission
- Shortly after it was launched into space, the ground team was unable to communicate with the lunar lander
- This is because the lander’s solar power cells were pointed away from the sun and could not be realigned
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The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is mourning the loss of its first lunar probe after its signal was lost when NASA’s Artemis mission launched it into space Wednesday evening.
The OMOTENASHI probe suffered communication failures when it detached from the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket because it was incorrectly positioned relative to the sun. The panels faced away from the sun, hindering the ability to charge the batteries.
Unable to gain control, the team was forced to abandon plans to land on the surface Monday night.
A successful landing of the OMOTENASHI would have made Japan the fourth country to put a spacecraft on the lunar surface, after the former Soviet Union, the United States and China.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency lost communication with its lunar lander and announced it would not become the fourth country to land on the moon
Tatsuaki Hashimoto, who led the project, called the development “deeply regrettable” at a press conference following the decision to abandon the moon landing.
The development cost for the probe was $5.6 million, he said.
OMOTENASHI, short for Outstanding MOon Exploration Technologies Demonstrated by NAno Semi-Hard Impactor, was one of three CubeSats aboard the SLS launched last week.
However, the other two parted perfectly and began their missions.
ArgoMoon, built by Italian aerospace company Argotec, will study the moon, and then there’s NASA’s BioSentinel, which houses a biological experiment that will be studied in deep space.
OMOTENASHI measures just ten centimeters by nine centimeters by thirty centimeters, making it the smallest probe set for the moon.
Unable to gain control, the team was forced to abandon plans to land on the surface Monday night
OMOTENASHI, short for Outstanding MOon Exploration Technologies Demonstrated by NAno Semi-Hard Impactor, was one of three CubeSats aboard the SLS launched last week
Its primary goal was to test the technologies and orbital maneuvers that would allow a small lander to land on the moon while keeping its systems — including power, communications and propulsion systems — intact.
And the probe was about to jump-start Japan’s mission to build a lunar habitat for its astronauts.
JAXA split up his probe’s death Twitter: ‘For ham enthusiasts and around the world, although today we tried to recover OMOTENASHI and start the landing sequences, communication failed to return and we gave up our UHF operation during the landing phase. Thanks for everyone’s nice cooperation.’
OMOTENASHI separated from SLS about four hours after the launch of the world’s most powerful rocket last Wednesday, when Artemis I finally took off after several mechanical and weather delays.
NASA’s SLS launched in the early morning hours on Wednesday, sending the Orion capsule on its 25-day mission to circle the moon and return to Earth
The probe exited the rocket without a hitch, but the solar cells failed to function because the body rotated away from the sun every four to five seconds, which is eight times faster than the supposed limit.
JAXA said it couldn’t wait for the solar cells to recover later than Tuesday or they would have missed the chance to land on the moon.
The agency has set up a special team to investigate the outage.
Hashimoto also said the probe’s solar arrays will face the sun in March 2023, allowing contact with it again.
NASA’s SLS launched in the early morning hours Wednesday, sending the Orion capsule on its 25-day mission to circle the moon and return to Earth.
This historic launch marks the first stage of the US space agency’s goal of returning humans to the lunar surface for the first time in half a century.
If the mission succeeds, a human journey around the moon will follow in 2024 and could lead to the first woman and first person of color following in Neil Armstrong’s footsteps the following year.