Japan Lands On The Moon.... Upside Down? Astrobotic's Moon Lander Lands On Earth?
25,145Over the last 24 hours we've had 2 lunar missions finish powered flight, one more successfully than the other.
Firstly, Congratulations to Japan which has managed to soft land a spacecraft on the surface of the moon, this makes them the 5th nation to accomplish this feat. However it appears that they did not land on the spacecraft's feet and instead rolled, probably ending up inverted with the solar panels in the wrong orientation. However, the 2 rovers have deployed and we hope to see something from them in the coming days.
Secondly, Astrobotic's Peregrine lander returned to earth and burned up after suffering a propellent leak early in the mission, however the team managed to keep the spacecraft alive and operated a number of the payloads in deep space rather than on the surface of the moon for a few days before the spacecraft returned over the Pacific ocean.
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