The End of Two Moon Missions?

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of Japan’s SLIM mission over the Moon. (JAXA)

Within a two day period, we saw one Moon lander become a burning wreck plummeting towards Earth and another land on the Moon with an immediate problem that threatened its mission. The Moon may be closer, but it is becoming a hazardous place for space missions, similar to Mars.

First, the NASA-contracted Astrobotic Peregrine lander mission ended yesterday as the spacecraft entered the Earth’s atmosphere and burned up. The $108 Moon mission burned up with its cargo, including NASA’s scientific instruments, various rovers, and the DNA remains of humans whose families hoped would be at rest on the Moon’s surface. I expect a few Native Americans may be saying “I told you so” to themselves.

It was almost comical reading a Scientific American article trying to put a good spin on the lost cargo:

In addition, all nine of the payloads that were designed to communicate with Peregrine successfully returned data to Earth. Iris, a rover built by Carnegie Mellon University, sent back a “Hello Earth!” message. COLMENA, a set of five small rovers built by the Mexican Space Agency, also succeeded in sending data back—making it the first Mexican scientific instrument to operate in the moon’s vicinity.

I expect “Hello Earth!” fell far below the ground crew’s expectations, but I guess you take what you can get. And Mexico will probably hold off on any celebrations for the moment.

The second set of bad news related to the latest Japanese Moon mission. The good news is that the Smart Lander for Investigation Moon (SLIM) spacecraft was a success in terms of a soft landing on the Moon. The problem is that the solar array is not getting sufficient solar power for the lander to remain operational for more than a few hours. It is possible that the situation may correct itself as the sunshine shifts over time, but this is not a good start to the mission.

Whatever happens, Japan can still claim to be the fifth nation to successfully land on the Moon. It is not perfect, but the Japanese have more reason to celebrate than the Mexicans at this point.