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Japan’s space agency said on Monday it had ended its Moon lander operation after losing communication with the uncrewed spaceship last week.<\/p>\n
The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM), dubbed the “Moon Sniper” for its landing precision, touched down eight months ago\u2014making Japan only the fifth nation to achieve a soft lunar landing.<\/p>\n
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) wrote on X there was no response from the SLIM after trying to communicate last week following three frigid lunar nights or six cold weeks.<\/p>\n
“We judged that there was no prospect of restoring communication with SLIM, and at around 22:40 (1340 GMT) on August 23, we sent a command to stop the SLIM activity,” JAXA said, nearly a year after launching the operation.<\/p>\n
“SLIM continued to transmit information on its status and the surrounding environment for a much longer period than expected.”<\/p>\n
“At the time of launch, no one imagined that the operation would continue this long,” it said.<\/p>\n
The touchdown of the unmanned lander in January was a success, but it landed at a wonky angle that left its solar panels facing the wrong way.<\/p>\n
As the sun’s angle shifted, it came back to life for two days and carried out scientific observations of a crater with a high-spec camera.<\/p>\n
The SLIM was not designed for the freezing, two-week-long lunar nights, when the temperature plunges to minus 133 degrees, but it worked up for a third time in April.<\/p>\n
The spacecraft carried two probes, one with a transmitter and a mini-rover that moves like a turtle around the lunar surface beaming images back to Earth.<\/p>\n
The SLIM’s mission aims to examine a part of the Moon’s mantle\u2014the usually deep inner layer beneath its crust\u2014believed to be accessible at the crater where it landed.<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJapan’s space agency ends Moon probe operation (2024, August 26)
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