Not dead yet: Japan prepares for possible recovery of SLIM moon lander

[Admin]

The SLIM 'Moon Sniper' probe went silent shortly after notching Japan's first-ever lunar landing on Jan. 19. But there may be life in the spacecraft yet.

Not dead yet: Japan prepares for possible recovery of SLIM moon lander : Read more

 

[MarkSV]

So the lander is facing away from the sunlight…
And unless they get lucky it will likely be a scrapped mission when small remaining battery life is shot…

So go down fighting! When it’s clear the remaining mission is doomed, signal to re-ignite a landing or steering jet again for the briefest moment, kicking the craft and giving it a chance to turn / tip / tumble and, maybe, settle down with sun on panels. If the panels are on one side the odds should be > 1 in four (it doesn’t have to be perfect just with the panel side better oriented).

Okay maybe igniting an engine again isn’t possible but I hope they are getting creative since what’s to lose at this point…

 

[Pogo]

Hopefully, since the panels are on the side, that it can get a wee bit of power from sunlight reflected from the ground.

 

[COLGeek]

I suspect that the engineers are looking at optimizing landing in relation to charging more now for future missions.

Fingers crossed that this mission can be salvaged to gather more science. Good stuff regardless.