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Landing upside down is what they call "the glitch"? How could that be fixed, did it have some way to restore its position? Or only the solar cells were turned u
by soco 3y ago
Landing upside down is what they call "the glitch"? How could that be fixed, did it have some way to restore its position? Or only the solar cells were turned upside up? What happened there in the end?
- resolutebat 3y agoThe lander has no way to correct its orientation, and in any case was never designed to survive in the lunar night, which starts in a few days on February 1st.
- nottorp 3y ago> was never designed to survive in the lunar night But does it mean it won't actually 'survive' ? What's survival in this case, getting enough power from the solar panel to boot up and transmit again, when the next day comes?
- yencabulator 3y agoSurvival means not being destroyed by the coldness of the lunar night, something like -130 C to even -250 C, for two weeks. Many spacecraft have a radioactive heat source to heat themselves through the cold stretches. It seems for this one, primarily aimed at developing landing methods, that wasn't thought to be worth it.
- HALtheWise 3y agoThis may be a silly question, but shouldn't the attitude thrusters still be restartable?
- echoangle 3y agoIts the second sentence in the Article. It is still in the original position but the angle of sunlight has shifted so light is now hitting the solar panels of the lander.
- thrdbndndn 3y agoI assume it has actuators to correct the upside down position issue as soon as it has access to solar power? Or it has to stay in this position?
- KineticLensman 3y agoNo actuators. It’s basically a box
- dotancohen 3y agoIt has the exact same actuators to correct upside down position issues as does the Toyota Camry.
- bashauma 3y agoThe probe is expected to operate during lunar daylight, i.e., until 2/1. (Note the main mission of SLIM is a "pinpoint landing" and the observation by the probe is just a bonus.) During the remaining three days, JAXA has announced that they will focus on optical observations of the surrounding environment (specifically, some rocks in the surrounding area). So it is hard to imagine they will do this hard schedule of risky additional operations to restore the attitude.
- angiosperm 3y agoHas attitude thrusters, but they might be worried about it ending up in a worse position.
- firtoz 3y agoYou just send the commands upside down and it works
- nottorp 3y agoUnicode already has a special case for this, right? "Upside down hiragana right yourself". "Mirrored upside down hiragana right yourself". And 31284 related emoji.
- jojojaf 3y agoBasically the same as contacting Australia
- Etheryte 3y agoLittle known fact, but this is why binary was chosen to represent data in the digital age, 1-s and 0-s look more or less the same upside down.
- 3y ago
- adrian_b 3y agoActually it has landed on one lateral side, not upside down. The engine nozzles that are now directed upwards were intended to remain on one lateral side. The lander was supposed to rotate one quarter turn after landing, to bring the engine nozzles from downside to a lateral side. Instead of that, it has rotated a half of turn, bringing the nozzles upside, due to an excessive horizontal speed at contact. The solar panels are now on one lateral side instead of on the upper side. Initially that lateral side was opposite to the Sun. After the Moon has rotated, the Sun has begun to illuminate the panels, though it is likely that the generated power has remained much lower than intended. If they can no longer move it, they will have to save power, because they will be able to recharge the battery only during a small part of the Lunar day.
- jacquesm 3y agoMaybe, just maybe they can use the rovers to push it over.
- yencabulator 3y agoThe two rovers it launched are small, one is a rolling ball the size of a baseball, the other is a hopper a few times bigger. Not much pushing happening with them.
- jacquesm 3y agoAh, too bad.
- cubefox 3y ago> Actually it has landed on one lateral side, not upside down. The description "lateral side" only makes sense if the engines are the "bottom" of the craft. Then it did in fact land upside down. Otherwise the engine side would count as a "lateral side".
- adrian_b 3y agoDuring landing, before contact, the engines were the bottom of the craft. However the side with engines was not intended to be the bottom of the craft after landing. Another side has legs and it was intended to become the bottom side after landing, by a quarter turn rotation from the flight orientation. That went wrong by making an extra quarter turn rotation. I have used "lateral side" as corresponding to the intended orientation after landing, not corresponding to the orientation during flight. The engine side was intended to be a lateral side after landing, but instead of that it has become the upper side. What counts is that the lander has made only a quarter turn of additional rotation compared to the original plan, not an additional half turn, as implied by "landing upside down".
- rkagerer 3y agoHere's how it was supposed to land (bear with the video through the boulder scanning discussion): https://youtu.be/nvXLt3ET9mE?t=1384 https://youtu.be/nvXLt3ET9mE?t=1384 Here's how I gather it actually landed: https://static.euronews.com/articles/stories/08/19/58/62/1200x675_cmsv2_59cd42ea-9765-51a3-91ad-083509c20d60-8195862.jpg https://static.euronews.com/articles/stories/08/19/58/62/120... Scott Manley describes it in more detail (don't miss the hilarity around 4:48): https://youtu.be/7bFiJvbKyPs https://youtu.be/7bFiJvbKyPs