[HN Gopher] Japan's first-ever soft lunar landing with SLIM spac...
___________________________________________________________________
Japan's first-ever soft lunar landing with SLIM spacecraft [video]
Author : NedF
Score : 256 points
Date : 2024-01-19 15:06 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| letmevoteplease wrote:
| The official JAXA streams are here:
|
| Japanese: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Udh6kvjZYC8
|
| English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvXLt3ET9mE
|
| Edit: It was supposed to touch down at this point, but they are
| pausing for 30 minutes to check the status of the craft. Doesn't
| look hopeful to me.
|
| Edit 2: They now say it may take up to 2 hours to confirm the
| situation.
|
| Edit 3: The craft landed successfully and is communicating
| properly, but the solar cell is not generating electricity, so it
| is being operated on low battery power. Lunar Excursion Vehicle 1
| and 2 have been successfully separated.
| burrish wrote:
| 250k viewers in the Japanese stream wow
| rtkwe wrote:
| Looks like it might have rolled on landing if their telemetry
| representation is accurate. There were some pretty significant
| rotation rate readings right after the throttles shut down.
| greggsy wrote:
| It is designed to approach vertically, the drop forward on
| four feet
| londons_explore wrote:
| and it actually dropped sideways instead of forward
| bradyd wrote:
| From @roelschroeven's post [1], rolling during landing was
| part of the design. It's possible it didn't roll as expected,
| though, blocking the solar panels. However the fact they were
| able to separate the rovers makes it seem like it could be a
| technical issue with the panels instead.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39057224
| rtkwe wrote:
| Saw that after I posted. It's an interesting design I
| hadn't seen before. Hopefully it worked out.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Press conference has begun.
| greggsy wrote:
| It really is refreshing to see the restrained satisfaction
| after a successful operation, compared to the jeering and
| cheers we've come to expect from the team during every SpaceX
| mission.
| jcims wrote:
| Eh, I love the cheering.
| huytersd wrote:
| I think it's more a dissatisfaction over a not totally
| successful mission than a restrained satisfaction.
| scohesc wrote:
| The telemetry screen showed that the craft might have flipped
| over, doesn't look good for a landing unfortunately...
|
| You got this next time, Japan! :)
| burkaman wrote:
| It also looked like it went below 0 altitude? I had it muted so
| not sure if that was expected or not, but seemed like it might
| have touched down too fast.
| genpfault wrote:
| > It also looked like it went below 0 altitude?
|
| "Lithobraking"[1]
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithobraking
| T-A wrote:
| That would be consistent with it rolling down the slope.
| burkaman wrote:
| That makes sense. I was thinking that its altitude sensor
| might have been miscalibrated or confused, so it hadn't yet
| reached the ground when it thought it had.
| bArray wrote:
| Seems the last telemetry was flipped. My bet is that the last
| final burn before contact with the surface caused it to flip.
| It also looked like it carried too much velocity as the very
| end, again I think that's because it was doing the last hard
| burn in a direction not toward the surface.
|
| Given how many failures there have been in the final process of
| contacting with the moon, I would be tempted to just embrace
| the velocity. One idea would be to use an anchor shot into the
| lunar surface.
| tjpnz wrote:
| Assuming it did flip over would Japan still be on the list of
| countries to have successfully landed? There's a big difference
| between what we presumably witnessed and an out of control
| craft smashing into the surface.
| eichin wrote:
| In the vein of "any landing you can walk away from", between
| it (a) successfully deploying the sub-rovers (though maybe
| that happens slightly before contact?) (b) it communicating
| enough post-landing telemetry that they can diagnose things,
| I think that should count as "successfully landing". (One of
| the actual mission goals was ending up on the ground within
| meters of where they intended, and it sounds like they nailed
| that too?)
| tjpnz wrote:
| Note that my comment was written when they were still
| trying to regain contact with the lander.
| talldatethrow wrote:
| If your main goal was to land and go forward with tests,
| but your landing started the soon to be demise of the
| cargo, I cant really say it's successful.
|
| It deployed the rovers similar to how injured pilots might
| still exist an aircraft after a crash. If they soon die due
| to solar panel issues from the crash, they didn't really
| walk away to live another day.
| roelschroeven wrote:
| It was supposed to flip over, so that in itself doesn't mean
| anything. See this picture: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-
| content/uploads/2024/01/SLIM_... (from
| https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/01/japans-moon-sniper-
| mis...)
|
| But it seems likely that it has not flipped over in the way
| that it was supposed to. It going below zero altitude in the
| end, and the "waiting for confirmation of a good landing",
| don't give me much hope.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| I don't know why, but that lander and its two robots seem
| adorable to me.
| voisin wrote:
| Japanese design always seems adorable to me.
| drtgh wrote:
| Animated SLIM mission (labels in English),
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57hS8uLU7v4
|
| From JAXA's talk,
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ej4ZMp4a2xw&t=4695s
| rebolek wrote:
| IIRC, it should have flipped, that's how it lands. Unusual, but
| why not.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Perhaps an improved design would not matter which orientation
| it came to rest in. It could extend a rod to right itself, or
| simply work regardless of its orientation.
|
| It would be a fun engineering challenge to built such.
| codeulike wrote:
| Ambiguous landing
|
| The tiny LEV2 spherical rover looks cool, hope it made it
| https://global.jaxa.jp/activity/pr/jaxas/no088/03.html
| rwmj wrote:
| I hope Tomy company is the very same that did all the toys and
| robots in the 1980s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomy
| ginko wrote:
| It is. They mentioned in the live stream.
| samstave wrote:
| I wish we could "cluster bomb" celestial bodies with such
| spheres where they have a sensor core and just roam about.
| Imagine deploying a body of bots via a star-link-type-launcher
| that just spits out a bunch of these guys as it orbits the moon
| - then they land and roll araound and comm back to the
| deployment sat and talk to eachother as the Roomba the F out of
| the moon and give all sensor data back to the sat launcher as
| it orbits...
| Teever wrote:
| I had similar thoughts when I saw the flea robot from Boston
| Dynamics.[0]
|
| Imagine exploring mars with a combination of a dozen or so
| flea type robots that have solar panels on them and a robot
| arm for sample retrieval that can fold up into the body. They
| can trundle around the surface taking video and picking up
| samples as desired and then return to the stationary lander
| that they came from when needed.
|
| The stationary lander can have all of the sample analysis
| machinery, seismograph, weather station, as well as a high
| bandwidth uplink to satellites in orbit / Earth.
|
| Keep landing more and more of these within the the same area
| so that the fleas can travel between the stationary landers
| as they travel further and further, heck you can even form a
| mesh network between all of the machines on the ground, and
| offload a lot of heavy computational processing to the
| stationary landers that could be powered by an RTG.
|
| You can risk individual fleas doing dangerous things that you
| otherwise wouldn't want to risk one large all in one lander
| on, as losing a flea only degrades a small fraction of your
| research and if fleas get stuck somewhere another flea can
| attempt to rescue it. You could even have the fleas return
| home to overwinter if they're not designed to withstand the
| winter.
|
| There's so much versatility that you gain in a model like
| this with small disposable rover robots paired with massive
| stationary landers.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b4ZZQkcNEo
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Can't believe that video is >10 years old. The 'big wheels
| on a pancake' form factor is easily available now in <$100
| toys but inexplicably I don't see anyone using the
| lever+piston design for upward locomotion...although I
| suspect it can only pull that trick once or twice on a
| single charge.
|
| I am very much with you on the 'numerous and cheap'
| approach to space exploration. That said, the minimal
| viable robot for and environment like the Moon is not an
| easy spec to meet, since it needs to operate in wild
| extremes of temperature that are hard to test for. Then
| again, cubesats built with very cheap hardware have proved
| surprisingly versatile.
| samstave wrote:
| Jiminy crickets, I am also gobsmacked for it being that
| long ago... I forgot about this. I wonder if the tech was
| "squashed" because of the implications?
|
| If that little jumping mechanism were some small, cheap,
| open-sorce thing, I can only imagine it being
| weaponized...
|
| However check out this cool vid on Worlds Highest Jumping
| Robots.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daaDuC1kbds
| bboygravity wrote:
| Musk/SpaceX is going to bring Starlink to mars, that would
| help for what you are describing.
| FranOntanaya wrote:
| Seismic sensors would definitely benefit from this.
| Scientists have to get clever to estimate the direction of
| events when using a single sensor like on the InSight lander.
| cuSetanta wrote:
| The forst model of that rover was on the ispace lander and I
| had the pleasure of working with the Jaxa team integrating it.
| Was super fun to see it rolling back and forth and taking
| images in the test facility.
|
| It was the payload I was most sad to have lost on our crash.
| aaron695 wrote:
| There is livestream of the signal being picked up at Bochum.
|
| They say it landed safely (See comments on the right)
|
| "Live spectrum view and waterfall from the X-Band or S-Band
| receiver at the 20m radio telescope at Bochum Observatory /
| Germany" -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pPBCIpVGsM
|
| Space really has a PR issue, waiting around for a press
| conference and they really need live video from the moon, it's
| hard but important.
| edgyquant wrote:
| The moon is far enough away that there will be a 1 second time
| delay regardless
| GartzenDeHaes wrote:
| Live TV from Apollo 11 had a huge cultural impact. People who
| were born before the Wright Brothers flier watched the moon
| landing on live TV. They had an incredible sense of Progress
| that we seem to have mostly lost.
| xeromal wrote:
| To this day, it's the most watched program in terms of raw
| numbers, not even percentage!
| londons_explore wrote:
| Someone born in 1900 went from horse and cart to landing on
| the moon in their lifespan.
|
| Someone born in 1960 will go from telephones and libraries to
| apps and VR headsets...
|
| I know which transformation I think is more impressive.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| It is a private company, not the country of Japan, if I
| understand correctly.
|
| EDIT: Other sources say it's JAXA. I'll withdraw the comment,
| sorry, but I wonder if there's a bit more to it.
| SECProto wrote:
| > It is a private company, not the country of Japan, if I
| understand correctly.
|
| What makes you say that? It looks like a JAXA programme to me:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Lander_for_Investigating...
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Hmmm ... the CBS Evening News channel on YouTube said it was
| a private company, another subthread here refers to one. I
| wonder what he arrangement is. JAXA subcontracted it?
| RationPhantoms wrote:
| Maybe they're confusing that with the last Japanese-
| originated lunar landing (That was a private company,
| ispace, that attempted and was unsuccessful)
| seaal wrote:
| >JAXA is the Japanese national air and space agency.
| Through the merger of three previously independent
| organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003.
| burkaman wrote:
| CBS was probably talking about LEV-2, one of the rovers on
| board, which did have some contributions from private
| companies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Lander_for_I
| nvestigating....
| crispyambulance wrote:
| I find the name charming:
|
| SLIM == Smart Lander for Investigating Moon
| quux wrote:
| I think it was originally Small Lander for Investigating Moon
| :)
| Crespyl wrote:
| Are we sure it's not "SLIM: Lander for Investigating Moon"
| sph wrote:
| No UNIX greybeard were involved in this project. They would
| have also proposed SNAIL, "SNAIL's Not An Investigative
| Lander"
| beAbU wrote:
| Very fitting, because in dome languages "slim" means smart! Not
| in Japanede though (I think)
| qingcharles wrote:
| Landing was successful.
|
| It is communicating with Earth, but the solar cell is not
| providing power so they are burning up the battery.
|
| They are trying to get as much data from the unit as possible
| before the battery dies.
|
| They took photos and are downloading them as priority now.
|
| They have been forced to switch off the heater.
|
| There is only a few hours of battery available to do what they
| need.
|
| They have separated LEV1 and LEV2 (rovers).
|
| Stay posted, they say. Need more time to figure out what is going
| on.
| sjwhevvvvvsj wrote:
| Isn't there just an "IT guy" they can send over?
| T-A wrote:
| You just reminded me of this little cinematic gem:
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1182345/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_8_tt_6.
| ..
| HPMOR wrote:
| Wow seems like a great movie!
| belter wrote:
| It is. Great finale also.
| qingcharles wrote:
| It's an awesome under-rated gem.
| riffraff wrote:
| it's an absolute masterpiece.
| noncoml wrote:
| It is! Highly recommended!
| seraphsf wrote:
| Love that movie! What an amazing piece of small-scale sci-
| fi.
| ddol wrote:
| Another great small budget movie is Primer (2004).
|
| It has one of the biggest Budget to Box office multiples
| I know of: ~120x ($7k -> $841k)
| grecy wrote:
| I think Mad Max holds the record. (the original)
|
| Mad Max. $200k budget, almost $100m worldwide, for a 495x
| ROI
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| Deep Throat had at least a 600x multiple (a budget of
| $47,000 and a box office somewhere between 30 million and
| 50 million). Blair witch had over a 1000x multiple, with
| the same 200k budget as mad Max and a box office around
| 200 million. Paranormal Activity also seems to be close
| to the 1000x mark.
| archermarks wrote:
| EmpLemon has a video about this. He argued Blair Witch
| had the highest multiple (~1200x)
|
| https://youtu.be/PYmi559SpWI?si=_oTiHXTili5K6W5s
| deepsun wrote:
| The best acting by Kevin Spacey!
| dtgriscom wrote:
| What a quiet, calm, moving soundtrack.
| aikinai wrote:
| I had never heard of Moon and randomly picked it to watch
| on an airplane with no Internet. I was not prepared for
| that good of a movie!
| layer8 wrote:
| Have they tried turning it off and on again?
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| I hope to see the time when it's normal to send a pair/party
| of multifunctional robots instead of a single rover. Imagine
| them repairing each other's back.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Jeb?
| fffernan wrote:
| Happens to me all the time in Kerbal
| deepsun wrote:
| Usually because I forgot about the solar panels.
| raisin_churn wrote:
| Fortunately with EVA construction you can now just send
| Bill to glue one on. I hope JAXA is running >1.11.
| efitz wrote:
| And the ladder
| azernik wrote:
| The actual intended landing profile _and_ the likely failure
| mode are both extremely Kerbal.
| nickmcc wrote:
| Has anyone confirmed if LEV1 and LEV2 can continue to operate
| and communicate to earth independently from SLIM, if the SLIM
| batteries fail?
| londons_explore wrote:
| one can, the other cannot
| tuukkah wrote:
| LEV-1 transmits directly to earth, and (based on what they
| said at the press conference) LEV-2 communicates via LEV-1.
|
| Link to the part about LEV-2: https://www.youtube.com/live/nv
| XLt3ET9mE?feature=shared&t=17...
| skeaker wrote:
| Listening to the press conference, it sounds like the landing was
| a success but that the solar generators aren't creating any
| power, so they're currently on low power from the battery as they
| try to figure that out.
| dang wrote:
| Related articles:
|
| https://www.newscientist.com/article/2413336-japans-slim-spa...
|
| https://spacenews.com/japan-makes-history-with-tense-success...
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/live/science-environment-68019846
|
| (these were all submitted later but there weren't any comments
| yet to merge)
| seatac76 wrote:
| The rovers are so interesting, glad they got those out.
| layer8 wrote:
| Anyone know why the crater is romanized "shioli" rather than
| "shiori"?
| z2 wrote:
| https://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/Feature/15851
|
| Reference: [536] - "'Deadpool 2' Sets Actress Shioli Kutsuna In
| A Key Role": https://deadline.com/2017/06/deadpool-2-shioli-
| kutsuna-ryan-...
|
| So perhaps the question is, did Shioli's parents choose this
| spelling because they felt Australians may more correctly
| pronounce her name with an L instead of an R?
| layer8 wrote:
| I'm not sure I understand the reference, since it doesn't
| mention the crater. It looks like it is just meant to be a
| evidence that "Shioli" can be a "Japanese female first name".
| In either case, that romanization is uncommon, so the
| question stands.
|
| I wondered about pronunciation by foreigners being a
| motivation, but I would still expect an incorrect
| pronunciation like "shy-oh-ly".
| kadoban wrote:
| It's a quote from the first link, about the crater.
|
| I believe the meaning is that the crater was named after
| the actress, and presumably copied the spelling of her
| name.
| layer8 wrote:
| There is no evidence that it was named after her in the
| referenced Deadpool article, and I would expect the
| "Origin" field to mention it if it was the case. Your
| conclusion doesn't seem plausible to me.
| kadoban wrote:
| I couldn't find any other reason for that article to be
| referenced mostly. Seems like you're probably right
| though.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Considering this is an ISAS project I wouldn't be surprised
| there were an eroge character named and spelled
| conspicuously similar to that.
|
| That naming was briefly mentioned in the press conference,
| and the official reasoning told was it was so named "in the
| hope this landing will be a bookmark(shiori) in the long
| history of human aspirations towards the Moon", :shrug:.
| hojinkoh wrote:
| Congratulations Japan!
| AltMatt wrote:
| I interviewed the designers of the LEV-2 rover (aka Sora-Q) in
| late 2022.
|
| https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/a-mini-moon-rover...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-01-20 23:02 UTC)