
Seems like it’s
BanJAXA’d
Data from Japan's Smart Lander for Investigating the Moon has been downloaded, and the machine switched off – with just 12 percent of battery capacity remaining. The lander last week touched down successfully upon Luna – a mighty feat, seldom achieved. But not long afterwards trouble struck, as its solar panels weren't …
I understand that LEV-1 has autonomous direct to earth comms and it also relays comms for LEV-2.
As far as I know, these two are working and they will be used to photograph the SLIM lander which seems to have suffered a rotation about at least one of its axes on landing. I believe that the data downloads for images will take some time.
Don't know if it fell over, it was actually meant to land on a different side down compared to the in flight orientation, so if one of the landing legs contacted the ground or an obstruction before the other, it may have landed correctly on its legs but turned. But perhaps it did a slow motion fall onto one side. I don't know how weight is distributed within the chassis but it does have a top heavy look to it.
Technically, it was meant to fall over. Their idea was that rather than having to have big long landing legs extending beyond the engine nozzles etc on the bottom of the lander, they would get to just above the deck, and then induce a rotation so as to intentionally fall over onto short stubby landing legs on the side of the lander. While that seemed quite a clever way to simplify the design of the lander and save weight, it also seemed potentially fraught with potential for mishaps, and I guess we'll find out, but it seems that manoeuvre indeed did not exactly go as planned. Did they mistime the rotation and rotate too far before hitting the deck? Did they bounce and roll? Did they manage to land on uneven terrain? I hope we get to find out.