Tag: Japan

A review of Japan’s effort to create a commercial space industry

9:54 am

Link here. The article does a nice job outlining the efforts of the new startups in Japan that have been successful in flying missions, such as the orbital tug company Astroscale and the lunar lander company Ispace, as well as newer companies such as Shachu, which proposes building and selling modules for use on any one of the new commercial space stations under construction.

The article also talks at length about Japan’s newly created ten year $6.5 billion strategic fund, designed to be provide funding for many different commercial projects and inspired by NASA recent switch from being the designer, builder, and owner of everything to simply a customer buying products from the private sector.

The fund has been given to Japan’s space agency to administer, and it remains unclear whether that government agency is prepared to give up power to the private sector as NASA has. This quote illustrates this uncertainty:

Since the effort is just starting, both companies and JAXA are uncertain how well the fund will work. Yasuo Ishii, senior vice president of JAXA, said the agency has assigned 450 people to administer the fund, including researchers and other experts. “We used to be an R&D institution and now we’re a funder,” he said.

He said JAXA will closely monitor progress on the initial awards made through the fund. “If some don’t go well, we may terminate them.”

It seems JAXA is so far using this fund to establish a large bureaucracy for itself, rather than issuing contracts to the private sector to build things JAXA needs.

We shall see how this plays out. The Japanese aerospace industry appears to be similar to the American space industry around 2008, with lots of old established big companies working hand-in-glove with the government space agency and a lot of small startups trying to establish themselves as competitors. In the U.S. at that time NASA was very resistant to give contracts to the startups. It took strong political pressure from within the upper levels of government, first in the Obama administration and then in the Trump administration, to force a change at NASA. Whether this will happen in Japan remains unknown.

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Japanese company proposes building a module to add to Axiom’s space station

9:24 am

Axiom's space station assembly sequence
The assembly sequence for Axiom’s space station while attached to ISS.
Click for original image.

The Japanese company Mitsui has now proposed building a module — based on Japan’s HTV cargo freighter that did several missions to ISS — and sell it to the commercial space stations now under construction.

Mitsui has created a subsidiary called LEO Shachu to develop the module. What makes this project very likely to happen is that Mitsui is also an investor in Axiom’s space station, and according to the article at the link, a Axiom official who is also a retired Japanese astronaut who flew to ISS has expressed interest in it.

This story also helps outline the international landscape of the future stations. While Voyager Space’s Starlab station has been partnering extensively with Europe and Airbus, Axiom appears to be partnering more closely with NASA and Japan. The third station that has obtained NASA money, Blue Origin’s Orbit Reef, had made an earlier deal with Mitsubishi, but appears to have obtained few other outside partners, and that Mitsubishi deal only involved “development work,” not specific hardware. Moreover, Mitsubishi later made a new deal with the Starlab station, suggesting it had broken up with Blue Origin.

A fourth station, being built by the private company Vast with no NASA money, has partnered with SpaceX and ESA. It is also likely to be the first to launch its first module in August 2025, followed soon thereafter by a 30 day 4-person Dragon mission.

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Astroscale’s ADRAS-J test spacecraft continues successfully maneuvers around abandoned rocket upper stage

9:04 am

abandoned upper stage, taken by ADRAS-J
Click for original image.

The Japaneses orbital tug startup Astroscale has revealed that its ADRAS-J test spacecraft has successfully completed more complicated autonomous proximity maneuvers around an abandoned H2A rocket upper stage that it rendezvoused with in March 2024.

Astroscale announced July 9 that its Active Debris Removal by Astroscale-Japan (ADRAS-J) spacecraft conducted a “fly around” maneuver, going part way around the H-2A upper stage it has been inspecting for the last few months. ADRAS-J used sensors to maintain a distance of just 50 meters from the stage.

However, about one third of the way through the maneuver, ADRAS-J encountered what the company called an “unexpected attitude anomaly” that triggered an automatic abort. The spacecraft moved away from the stage as designed to avoid any risk of a collision. “The abort maneuver implemented during the fly-around operation demonstrated that ADRAS-J can maintain safety even while performing close approach observations of non-cooperative objects,” the company said in a statement, adding that engineers had found the cause of the anomaly and were preparing for another close approach to the stage.

The picture to the right is of that upper stage, taken shortly after ADRAS-J arrived near the stage in the spring. According to the company, the stage is in remarkably good condition despite fifteen years in orbit, and also is flying in a very stable manner, tumbling almost not at all. This data suggests a mission to grab it and de-orbit it safely would be relatively easy.

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Japan dithers about capitalism in space

9:38 am

Despite its government creating in November 2023 a new “Space Strategic Fund” worth more than $6 billion designed to encourage capitalism in space and handing it to Japan’s space agency JAXA to administer, JAXA officials continue to dither on how to use that money to encourage private enterprise in space.

Japan’s space agency is seeking industry proposals for technologies that could contribute to future commercial space stations as the government studies what role it would play in supporting efforts to replace the International Space Station.

…That work will inform plans by Japan on how it can participate in commercial space stations being developed by American companies in partnership with NASA. “We are discussing how we will join NASA’s Commercial LEO Destination program,” said [Yasuo Ishii, senior vice president of JAXA]. “Our responsibility is not clear yet, but, of course, commitment at the government level is essential to commercial operations.” [emphasis mine]

The highlighted phrases above reveal the underlying motives of JAXA, which is not to encourage private independent space companies and reduce its involvement. Just the opposite. And it appears Japan’s government is a partner in this. While Japan gave that money to its space agency, which seems to be searching for ways to hold onto its power, both Europe and India instead quickly took power and funding away from their government agencies (Arianespace and ISRO respectively) to encourage independent private space companies to flourish.

This dithering will only put Japan further behind these countries as well as China, a reality that has become increasingly embarassing for the island nation.

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Japan’s H3 rocket launches successfully for the second time

9:24 pm

Japan’s space agency JAXA today successfully completed the second successive launch of its new H3 rocket, placing an Earth observation satellite into orbit.

This was the third launch of the H3, with the first in May 2023 a failure, and the second a success in February 2024.

I have embedded the video of the launch below, cued to T-15 seconds. This was Japan’s third launch in 2024, exceeding last year’s total of two and matching its total from 2024.

The leader board for the 2024 launch race remains unchanged:

69 SpaceX
29 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the world combined in successful launches, 80 to 44, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including other American companies, 69 to 55.
» Read more

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Japanese government proposes 300-mile-long conveyor belt for moving packages

12:27 pm

Pork to the max! A supposedly “expert panel” in Japanese government’s Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry has proposed building a 300-mile-long conveyor belt — possibly underground in a tunnel — between the cities of Tokyo and Osaka for moving packages, to be completed by 2034.

The biggest challenge is cost. According to a survey of construction companies, the cost of building an underground tunnel ranges from ¥7 billion to ¥80 billion per 10 kilometers, so a system linking Tokyo and Osaka would cost up to ¥3.7 trillion. When the ministry in the year 2000 first planned logistics links above ground, it estimated construction costs of ¥25.4 billion per 10 kilometers.

In dollars, the total cost of ¥3.7 trillion equals about $23 billion.

The so-called goal would be to eliminate 25,000 trucks, supposedly saving the world from those evil fossil fuels. That the belt would have to be powered of course is not mentioned, which I bet would probably require burning about the same amount of fuel.

The panel also claimed the conveyor belt would save money and reduce labor needs because it would also eliminate 25,000 truck drivers. With Japan facing a crash in population, the panel claims a shortage of labor is expected in the coming decades, and this plan will supposedly solve that. That’s also a fantasy. Who would upload the pallets onto the belt? Who would offload them? And how would those pallets be delivered at each point? And what about maintaining this giant conveyor belt? In the end, this plan will do nothing to reduce labor needs.

Nor is such a plan really necessary. When the population drops, the amount of cargo will drop as well. There will be no labor shortage in the shipping industry.

All this plan does is create a gigantic public works project that will almost certainly go over budget, fail to meet its schedule, and increase the cost of goods for both the companies and the public. But boy, it sure is going to employ a lot of government workers to supervise construction and operations!

Note I found about this project through a report at New Atlas, which as a left-leaning techno website accepted the plan instantly as brilliant and awe-inspiring.

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Japan’s space agency reveals it was hacked in 2023

9:02 am

Japan’s space agency JAXA today revealed that beginning in 2023 and periodically into this year it has been attacked repeatedly by hackers, with data from more than 10,000 files stolen.

Attacks occurred in June 2023 and multiple times a year, although investigations are ongoing regarding whether more information was stolen in this year’s attacks.

In addition to internal data, potentially compromised entities include NASA, Toyota Motor Corp., Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and the Defense Ministry, with which JAXA has nondisclosure agreements. Information from numerous aerospace and defense-related organizations and companies was also exposed.

JAXA stated that no sensitive information related to national security or rocket technologies was stolen in last year’s breach. Personal data of approximately 5,000 JAXA personnel and employees from partner companies was used to access the Microsoft 365 accounts of JAXA executives.

It appears JAXA officials only found out about the attack when police told them about it months after the June 2023 attack. Agency officials now say no sensitive rocket or satellite data was stolen. Instead, it appears the attack targeted personal communications as well as research facilities.

The report provided no indication about the source of these attacks, but noted that a 2016 attack is known to have come from China.

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Engineers lose contact with Japan’s Akatsuki Venus orbiter

9:11 am

According to a terse announcement by Japan’s space agency JAXA on May 29, 2024, engineers from its Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) have lost contact with Japan’s Akatsuki Venus orbiter.

ISAS has lost contact with Akatsuki after an operation in late April due to an extended period of low attitude stability control mode, and is currently making efforts to reestablish communication with the spacecraft.

Akatsuki has had a spotty and complex life. It was launched in 2010, but failed to enter Venus orbit as planned in two attempts in 2010 and 2011 because of a failure in its main engine. Engineers then improvised and — after orbiting the Sun for several years — were able to get it into Venus orbit in 2015 using only its attitude thrusters. Its primary mission ended in 2018, but it continued to study Venus’ atmosphere since.

Assuming Akatsuki is not recovered, as of now there are no operating orbiters at Venus. A mission by the private company Rocket Lab is expected to launch before the end of this year, followed by an orbiter from India in 2026. A NASA mission meanwhile is in limbo and will likely never fly, due to budget decisions at the agency, which took its funding and gave it to the troubled Mars Sample Return mission.

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SLIM goes dark

9:14 am

SLIM's landing zone
Map showing SLIM landing zone on the Moon.
Click for interactive map.

The Japanese lunar lander SLIM has failed to respond to ground commands sent soon after dawn, ending the lander’s fourth night on the Moon.

SLIM was never expected to survive the harsh conditions of even a single 14-day-long lunar night after landing on the Moon in January 2024. Its primary mission had been to test precision autonomous landings, which it did successfully (though it landed on its side when one nozzle fell off just before touchdown). Yet, it then survived three lunar nights, resuming communications at dawn.

Its failure now is therefore no surprise, and actually marks a magnificent engineering success. The spacecraft’s hardware was proven robust enough to survive the very cold temperatures during lunar night, and suggests that future Japanese lunar landers using SLIM designs will function as well.

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XRISM X-ray space telescope functioning despite closed “aperture door”

9:50 am

XRISM, a joint X-ray space telescope built by NASA and Japan’s space agency JAXA, is collecting data despite the failure on one instrument of an aperture door to open.

In January, project scientists said that XRISM was working well except for an aperture door, also called a gate valve, for the Dewar on its imaging instrument, Resolve, which failed to open. The instrument can still operate with the door closed, although the door, made of beryllium, does attenuate some X-rays at lower energies.

At the time, efforts were underway to try and open the gate valve. However, speaking at a May 7 meeting of the National Academies’ Board on Physics and Astronomy, Mark Clampin, director of NASA’s astrophysics division, said those efforts were on hold for the next year and a half.

Instead, the science team decided to proceed with science operations, since the telescope has two other working instruments, and can get data even from this hindered third.

XRISM is a replacement of a previous JAXA X-ray telescope that launched in 2016 but failed immediately.

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Astroscale releases image of abandoned upper stage taken by its ADRAS-J orbital tug during rendezvous operations

10:37 am

abandoned upper stage, taken by ADRAS-J
Click for original image.

Capitalism in space: The Japanese orbital tug startup Astroscale today released an image its ADRAS-J spacecraft took of an abandoned rocket upper stage during rendezvous operations.

That image is to the right, cropped to post here. ADRAS-J’s mission is to test autonomous rendezvous and close proximity operations as well as obtain images of the stage in order to prepare for a second mission that will grab the abandoned stage with a robot arm and de-orbit it.

Both missions have been funded by Japan’s space agency JAXA. The mission however is unprecedented by that agency, in that it did not design the mission, but instead hired this private startup to do it, signaling that agency’s shift from being the designer, builder, and owner of such projects to becoming simply a customer. If successful, the mission will be the first to capture a very large piece of space junk and remove from orbit.

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Astroscale wins contract to complete removal of large piece of space junk

8:39 am

Capitalism in space: Japan’s space agency JAXA has now awarded the orbital tug startup Astroscale a contract to complete the removal of an abandoned upper stage from a previously launched rocket.

Astroscale has already flown the first phase of this project, with its ADRAS-J tug flying in March and April a demo rendezvous mission with the rocket stage, getting to within several hundred meters of the stage. The second phase, now approved, will grab the stage with a robot arm and then de-orbit it. No date for the launch of that second phase was announced.

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SLIM survives its third lunar night

9:07 am

Though it was primarily designed to prove its landing system and was never expected to resume operations after enduring the long 14-day-long lunar night, Japan’s SLIM lunar lander has successfully survived its third lunar night, resuming contact with Earth yesterday.

JAXA said on the social media platform X that SLIM’s key functions are still working despite repeated harsh cycles of temperature changes. The agency said it plans to closely monitor the lander’s deterioration.

While the newly downloaded data and photos have some scientific value, the important data is the spacecraft’s engineering status. Finding out what continues to work and what fails after each lunar night will inform engineers on what to do best to build future lunar landers and rovers.

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Japan and NASA ink lunar deal

9:33 am

After several years of discussion, Japan and NASA have finally signed an lunar exploration agreement whereby Japan will build a pressurized rover that astronauts can use to travel large distances in exchange for NASA launching two Japanese astronauts to the Moon.

An enclosed and pressurized rover will enable astronauts to travel farther and conduct science in geographically diverse areas by serving as a mobile habitat and laboratory for the astronauts to live and work for extended periods of time. It will be able to accommodate two astronauts for up to 30 days as they traverse the area near the lunar South Pole. NASA currently plans to use the pressurized rover on Artemis VII and subsequent missions over an approximate 10-year lifespan.

This rover is being built in a deal between Japan’s space agency JAXA and Toyota. It will be very heavy, which meanst NASA is now planning its lunar exploration with Starship as a fundamental part. No other planned lunar lander could bring this kind of mass to the surface.

The two Japanese astronauts will likely fly on two different Artemis missions over that time-span. When these missions will occur will largely depend on how long NASA stubbornly sticks with is SLS/Orion/Lunar Gateway framework for getting astronauts to the Moon. These assets are not yet ready. They are also very cumbersome and expensive and slow. Missions using SLS expecially cannot occur faster than every two years, if that. If NASA depends on them, serious lunar exploration will likely not occur before 2030, at the earliest.

If however SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy becomes operational in the next two years, and NASA switches operations to it instead, the pace will pick up, exponentially. Launches could likely occur multiple times per year, and it will be possible to put large amounts of mass on the Moon quickly. That lunar base will be built fast.

The decision to switch however will require a political decision, one that it appears many in Washington are reluctant to make. First, the Democrats now see Elon Musk as an enemy. Why award his company? Secondly, SLS/Orion/Gateway are great jobs programs. Abandoning them will eliminate a lot of wasteful pork, a sin to the politicos who operate our government for their interests, not the interests of the country.

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Japan to sign deal with NASA to fly two Japanese astronauts to Moon

9:34 am

According to story in the Japanese press yesterday, a deal between Japan and NASA will be signed next week whereby Japan will have two astronauts go on Moon missions in exchange for providing cargo to the Lunar Gateway station as well as a manned lunar rover.

The report today is unclear whether those Japanese astronauts will land on the Moon, but I expect they will. The rover project is being led by Toyota. It will include a airtight cabin where spacesuits will not be necessary and passengers can also sleep, allowing for very long exploratory traverses from the landing site.

Reports of this deal have been appearing in the press since 2022, when NASA said it would involve flying one Japanese astronaut to the Moon. In December 2023 it was reported that the deal would be signed within a month. It is now April. It appears the extended negotiations have gotten Japan a second astronaut Moon walker.

NASA’s Artemis program is beginning to shape up as an international program for getting almost everyone to the Moon but Americans. I am exaggerating, but I think in the future Americans will find it easier to go on a private mission to the Moon than depend on NASA, especially because of all the international deals NASA will have to honor.

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Japan awards development agreements with four rocket startups

1:14 pm

Capitalism in space: Japan’s space agency this week awarded development agreements to four Japanese rocket startups, signaling that nation’s attempt to shift from depending on JAXA’s government-built rockets to becoming a customer of an industry of competing commercial rocket companies.

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Interstellar signed a basic agreement in March. Space One, whose Kairos solid rocket exploded seconds after liftoff earlier this month, was also selected under the JAXA-SMASH (JAXA-Small Satellite Rush Program) initiative. Two further companies also signed basic agreements. These are Space BD and Mitsui Bussan Aerospace, which offer services aimed at the commercial utilization of space.

The agreements mean the companies will have priority for future contracts. These are designed to support private-sector entities capable of launching satellites developed under JAXA’s small satellite missions and advance the commercialization of space transportation services.

These deals are part of a new policy announced in November that includes $6.6 billion to help encourage the growth of a Japanese commercial space sector, independent of that nation’s space agency.

It remains uncertain whether JAXA will let go the purse strings and actually allow these new companies ownership of what they do. The deals as described sound like the agency is using its power to attempt to capture the companies, rather than encourage their independent growth.

We shall have to wait and see. On its face this announcement is very good news for Japan’s space industry, as it suggests that things might be changing.

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The investors behind Space One, the Japanese commercial rocket company that had a launch failure yesterday

9:01 am

The explosion yesterday of the new Japanese-built Kairos-1 solid-fueded rocket shortly after lift-off immediately raised questions whether the new rocket company that built it, Space One, could survive that failure.

This story from CNBC suggests it will, based mainly on the nature of its principal investors.

Space One was set up in 2018 by a consortium of Japanese companies including Canon Electronics, IHI Aerospace and construction firm Shimizu, along with the government-owned Development Bank of Japan. Mitsubishi UFJ and Mizuho Financial Group, two of Japan’s biggest banks, also own minority stakes in Space One.

The story is focused on the declines in the stock values of these companies, following the failure, with Canon’s stock falling the most, 12.7%.

My takeaways from the article however are different. First, these are not small investors. Space One is backed by some of Japan’s biggest corporations as well as indirectly by the Japanese government. One failure should not cause them to back out of the project.

Second, that the company was formed in 2018 by these Japanese heavy-hitters and only now was able to finally attempt a launch — that ended in failure — suggests Japan’s heavy-hitters continue to do things slowly and poorly. Not only have these big companies been working much too slow to build this relatively small rocket, Mitsubishi’s effort to build the much larger H3 rocket for Japan’s space agency JAXA has also been fraught with delays and problems, from engine cracks to launch failures. It appears Japan’s space industry is building things with the same lackadaisical attitude of America’s modern airline industry.

Third, that this “startup” was created by a team of old space large companies suggests Japan still doesn’t get the basics of capitalism. This new company isn’t creating any real competition. It was instead apparently formed to keep these heavy hitters in control of the Japanese launch market. This partnership reminds me of the many projects put together for decades by American consortiums of old space companies, such as Boeing teaming with Lockheed Martin to create ULA. All such partnerships were designed not to create new companies and new innovative products that would compete, but to maintain the control these old companies had on the industry.

Space One will likely fly again, but until we begin to see completely new companies from Japan, backed by independent new investors, this country is going to continue to lag behind everyone else.

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First launch of Japanese rocket startup fails

10:03 pm

The first launch attempt by the Japanese rocket startup Space One failed today, when its Kairos-1 rocket blew up mere seconds after launch.

The launch took place from the company’s own launchpad in the south of Japan. The live stream shows the rocket appear to lift off cleanly, moving upward out of frame. When the video then switches camera to a more distant view, the rocket fails to appear from behind a nearby hill. Instead, a white cloud explodes upward. Shortly thereafter the live stream switches back to the launchpad, where there is a fire and smoke. Fire hoses then begin working to put the fire out.

Space One is the first independent commercial rocket startup in Japan apparently not working with that country’s JAXA space agency. We will have to wait and see whether it can recover from this failure.

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Japanese rocket startup scrubs first launch attempt

9:11 am

The first Japanese rocket commercial rocket company, Space One, today scrubbed the first launch attempt of its Kairos rocket, scheduled to take off from its own launchpad in the south of Japan.

“We informed the public in advance that we wanted to make the area free of people, but even 10 minutes before the launch, a vessel remained in the area, so we decided to cancel the launch because it would have been impossible for them to leave promptly,” Space One executive Kozo Abe told a news conference in the afternoon.

Abe said there were no technical problems with the launch and that the next attempt could come as soon as Wednesday, with the company likely to give a more detailed schedule at least two days before the new date.

The rocket has four-stages, the first three solid-fueled and the last liquid-fueled. Its capacity is comparable to Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket, and the company hopes to eventually ramp up to as many as twenty launches per year.

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SLIM put back to sleep for second lunar night

3:51 pm

Engineers at Japan’s space agency JAXA have put their SLIM lunar lander back to sleep on February 29, 2024 with the hope it might survive its second night on Moon.

“Although the probability of failure will increase due to repeated severe temperature cycles, SLIM plans to try operation again the next time the sun shines (in late March),” the update from JAXA read, automatically translated from Japanese to English by Google.

Like Intuitive Machines Odysseus lunar lander, SLIM’s overall mission was a success, as it proved it could land automatically within a very small target zone and do so softly enough that it could send back data to Earth. The failures and problems experienced by SLIM, such as having a nozzle fall off causing it land sideways are simply fixes that can be instituted on future missions.

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SLIM survives lunar night!

9:33 am

SLIM's view after surviving lunar night
Click for original image.

Japan’s space agency JAXA yesterday announced in a tweet that its SLIM lunar lander had survived the harsh lunar night, and that engineers had resumed communications.

The picture to the right was taken after communications were resumed. It shows SLIM’s view of 885-foot-wide Shioli Crater, the opposite rim the bright ridge in the upper right about a thousand feet away. From this news report:

The mission team received telemetry from SLIM around 5:00 a.m. Eastern (1000 UTC). The temperature of the communication equipment was extremely high, according to JAXA, due to the sun being high over the landing area. Communication was terminated after only a short period of time, JAXA stated.

The SLIM team is however now preparing to conduct observations with SLIM’s multiband spectroscopic camera (MBC) later in the lunar day. MBC is designed to ascertain the composition of the lunar surface and could provide insights into the moon’s history. Sunset over Shioli crater, on the rim of which SLIM landed, will occur Feb. 29.

Surviving the long lunar night is a major achievement. It means Japan’s technology here is capable of doing long missions on the Moon.

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Japan and India successfully complete launches

11:18 am

Japan and India today completed launches of different rockets, one on its first successful test launch.

First, early this morning Japan’s new H3 rocket successfully reached orbit for the first time, on its second attempt. The first attempt had problems, first with a launch abort at T-0 when the solid-fueled strap-on boosters failed to ignite. On the launch attempt the upper stage failed. Today’s launch was a complete success, placing a dummy payload into orbit.

Japan’s space agency JAXA however needs to learn how to run a launch in a professional manner. Minutes prior to launch an announcer began a second-by-second countdown, and continued this for minutes after the launch. Not only was this unnecessary and annoying, it made the real updates impossible to hear. India used to do this in its first few live streams, but quickly recognized the stupidity of it. In addition, the person translating the updates clearly knew nothing about rocket launches, so her translations were tentative and often completely misunderstood what had just happened.

All of this makes JAXA look like a second rate organization, which might also help explain its numerous technical failures in recent years.

About twelve hours later, at mid-day in India, India’s space agency ISRO successfully launched its GSLV rocket, placing a commercial radar environmental satellite into orbit.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

15 SpaceX
8 China
2 Iran
2 Russia
2 Japan
2 India

American private enterprise still leads the entire world combined in successful launches 17 to 16, with SpaceX trailing the entire world combined (excluding American companies) 15 to 16.

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German-built mini-rover for Japanese Phobos mission shipped to Japan

10:05 am

A German-built mini-rover, dubbed Idefix, has now been shipped to Japan to intergrate it as a secondary payload on that country’s MMX mission to the Martian moon Phobos.

The rover itself weighs 25 kilograms (55 pounds), is 51 centimeters long (20 inches), and is designed to explore up to 100 meters of Phobos’ surface. During one of MMX’s closest approaches to Phobos, the rover will be released at an altitude between 40 and 100 meters above the surface and touch down on Phobos. The drop utilizes the low gravity of Phobos, which will allow IDEFIX to just fall onto the surface, roll, and then raise itself to prepare for the roughly three-month-long mission. The gravity of Phobos is only roughly 1/1000th of the gravity of Earth, which can be attributed to the moon’s small size. Phobos only has a diameter of approximately 27 kilometers.

“Thanks to the low gravity, IDEFIX will need between 60 to 80 seconds from release to the touchdown on Phobos. The impact will be with less than one meter per second,” explained Professor Markus Grebenstein, who is DLR’s project lead for IDEFIX, in an interview with NSF.

If all goes right, the rover’s mission will last at least 100 days. MMX itself it scheduled to reach Phobos in 2029.

Meanwhile, scientists used one of the Perseverance’s high resolution cameras to capture another partial eclipse of the Sun by Phobos. This is not the first such Phobos eclipse that Perseverance has photographed (see for example here and here), but it is neat nonetheless.

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Japan’s lunar lander shuts down for long lunar night

9:15 am

SLIM's last image
Click for original image.

After two days of post landing operations, engineers for the Japanese lunar lander SLIM have shut it down now as the sun has set at its landing site on the Moon and its solar panel can no longer charge its batteries.

The picture to the right, reduced to post here, was the last image sent back by SLIM before shut down. It looks to the southeast across the width of 885-foot-wide Shioli Crater, the opposite rim the bright ridge in the upper right about a thousand feet away.

The engineers shut the spacecraft down prior to sunset in order to increase the chances that it will survive that very long harsh lunar night and reactivate when the Sun rises in two weeks. They recognized that the odds of this occurring are slim (no pun intended), because the lander was not designed to withstand the night’s cold temperatures, and more important, the solar panel will not get recharged until late in the lunar day, an additional week-plus past sunrise. That long period of inactivity will likely kill it.

No matter. The spacecraft’s main goal was to prove the ability of its landing system to land softly within a small target zone. It did so, even if it had an engine issue that caused it to land upside down. This new engineering will make it possible to send unmanned and manned landers to places on other planets that previously were impossible.

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Japan and India team up for unmanned lunar lander mission

9:42 am

Japan and India are now partnering to put a lander/rover on the Moon in 2025, dubbed LUPEX.

Set tentatively for 2025, LUPEX will be launched on JAXA’s H3 launcher, with a 350-kg rover developed by the Japanese agency. ISRO is developing the lander. The instruments will be on the lander and the rover. Initial feasibility studies and the lander’s configuration have been completed. The rover will sample the soil with a driller and the samples will be analysed using equipment on the rover,

Unlike the previously successful lunar landers from both countries (India’s Chandrayaan-3 and Japan’s SLIM), LUPEX is being designed to survive the 14-day-long lunar night, with a mission that is aiming to last three to six months.

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Communications with SLIM lunar lander re-established

9:29 am

According to Japan’s space agency JAXA, engineers last night successfully re-established communications with its SLIM lunar lander sitting up-side down on the Moon, the Sun finally shifting to the western sky so that its westward-facing solar panel could get light and provide power.

Communication with SLIM was successfully established last night, and operations resumed! Science observations were immediately started with the MBC, and we obtained first light for the 10-band observation.

One image was immediately downloaded. Engineers will attempt to initiate as many operations as possible in the next few days, before the Sun sets at the end of the month and the spacecraft shuts down again, likely forever.

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Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter photographs SLIM on the Moon

1:16 pm

LRO images showing before and after SLIM's landing
Click for blink animation.

Scientists using Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) were able on January 24, 2024 to obtain a photograph of the SLIM landing site on the Moon, and produce a before and after blink animation showing the lander on the ground.

The two pictures to the right, before and after, were taken from that animation. The bright speck in the after image is SLIM, sitting upside down on the surface. The faint streak of light material going from right to left lower in the photo comes from the fresh ejecta material thrown out from the nearby 1,425-foot-wide Shioli Crater to the west.

This picture confirms once again that SLIM achieved its main goal, landing precisely within a tiny landing zone only 300 feet across.

The landing occurred in the morning on the Moon, so the Sun was in the east. Because SLIM got flipped upside down just before touchdown, its one solar panel ended up facing west, where no sunlight could touch it. Based on the shadows in this picture, east is to the left, and west to the right. The solar panel is sitting in the shadow on SLIM’s right side.

In about a week the Sun will begin setting to the west, illuminating that panel. Engineers in Japan hope that at that time the panel will begin to recharge the spacecraft’s batteries, and it will then begin to operate again, if only a short while before the Sun sets and the very cold and hostile lunar night begins. There is little expectation of SLIM surviving that long two-week lunar night, even if it gets its batteries fully charged.

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SLIM landed on the Moon softly, but upside down!

9:41 am

SLIM upside down
Click for original image.

We now know why SLIM’s solar panel was not facing the Sun after the Japanese lunar lander touched down. When it was only 10 to 15 feet above the ground, preparing to land, one of its two descent engines failed, causing the spacecraft to tumble as it softly touched down. As a result, it landed softly, but upside down, thus putting the panel on its west side instead of its east side as planned.

The image to the right, cropped to post here, was taken by one of the two tiny rovers released by SLIM just prior to landing. It shows SLIM upside down, but essentially undamaged.

The lander however still apparently achieved its primary goal, landing within a small zone only 300 feet across, or 100 meters.

Analysis of the data acquired before shutting down the power confirmed that SLIM had reached the Moon’s surface approximately 55m east (180 feet) of the original target landing site. The positional accuracy before the commencement of the obstacle avoidance maneuver (at around a 50m altitude) which indicates the pinpoint landing performance, was evaluated to be at approximately 10m or less, possibly about 3 – 4m.

…Under these circumstances, the SLIM onboard software autonomously identifies the anomaly, and while controlling the horizontal position as much as possible, SLIM continued the descent with the other engine and moved gradually towards the east. The descent velocity at the time of contact with the ground was approximately 1.4 m/s or less, which was below the design range., but conditions such as the lateral velocity and attitude were outside the design range, and this is thought to have resulted in a different attitude than planned.

In other words, when that engine failed, SLIM was only about 10 to 30 feet from its pinpoint landing target, but then drifted eastward as its dropped those last few feet because of the unbalanced engine burn caused by only one engine.

That the spacecraft is still operating and can communicate with Earth, even though it is upside down, is remarkable. Moreover, SLIM did achieve its main goals quite successfully. It landed within its tight target zone, it released two mini-rovers which operated successfully, and has been able to send its own pictures back to Earth. It was not able however to test its crushable landing legs, as they remain in the air.

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Engineers shut lunar lander SLIM down in hope sunlight can recharge its batteries

8:54 am

SLIM's landing zone
Map showing SLIM landing zone on the Moon.
Click for interactive map.

Once they were able to download sufficient data, engineers have intentionally shut down Japan’s lunar lander SLIM in order to increase the chances it will recover should sunlight hit its solar panels and recharge its batteries.

The shutdown occurred three hours after landing on January 19, 2024, when the batteries still has a charge of about 12%.

Before turning the lander off remotely, mission control was able to receive technical and image data from its descent, and from the lunar surface. “We’re relieved and beginning to get excited after confirming a lot of data has been obtained,” JAXA said Monday in a statement, adding that “according to the telemetry data, SLIM’s solar cells are facing west”.

“If sunlight hits the Moon from the west in the future, we believe there’s a possibility of power generation, and we’re currently preparing for restoration,” it said.

The landing took place in the morning on the Moon, so there is a chance that in about a week, when the Sun shifts to the western sky, the panels will get sunlight and begin to recharge the battery.

Meanwhile, engineers confirmed that the two experimental mini-rovers were successfully deployed (see the media kit [pdf] for more details). At the moment we do not know if they have operated as planned, one rolling and the other hopping.

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JAXA: SLIM soft landing successful but will likely die prematurely after landing

10:40 am

According to managers at Japan’s space agency JAXA, its SLIM lunar lander successfully completed its soft landing on the Moon.

It appears SLIM’s solar cells are not producing power. The spacecraft is presently on battery power, which will only last a few hours. Engineers are presently rushing to download images, taken during descent and after landing. There is also no word yet on whether the two test rovers were successfully released and achieved their test goals.

To precisely determine if the lander achieved its goal to hit a precise landing zone less than 300 feet across will require further analysis, much of which will depend on the images presently being downloaded. At the moment the engineers believe this goal was achieved, however, based on the telemetry already received.

Thus, it appears Japan has managed a soft-landing, something that in the past few years several countries (Israel, Russia, India, United States) and private companies (SpaceIL, Ispace, Astrobotic) have failed to do. Right now Japan appears to be the third nation to succeed in this new round of lunar exploration, joining China and India (which succeeded on its second attempt).

The next lunar landing attempt will be by the American private company, Intuitive Machines. Its Nova-C lander is scheduled for launch on a Falcon 9 rocket in mid-February.

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