Mastodon Feed: Post

Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):

elizabethtasker@mastodon.online ("Elizabeth Tasker") wrote:

Not kidding about SLIM landing on its head... here is picture! This was taken by LEV-2 (SORA-Q) that adorbs transformer robot carried by SLIM that looks like a ball and then springs open to roll wild across the lunar surface and take photos as the mood takes it.

Clearly, it found this pretty funny and it autonomously selected this shot to send back to Earth.

There's a press release here that HQ can't be bothered to post the English.

https://www.jaxa.jp/press/2024/01/20240125-4_j.html

Attachments:

• Photograph of the SLIM spacecraft tilted onto its head on the lunar surface, taken by the LEV-2 robot onboard SLIM. Despite the spacecraft's angle, it's actually fine: it was a soft landing, but the loss of one of the main engines resulting in attitude control issues. (remote)