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[대학생 및 직장인 TV 영어 자막 뉴스 동영상 강좌]
January 20, 2024 TV English News
VOA60: January 19, 2024
Japan lunar landing: ‘Moon sniper’ mission reaches surface but appears to have failed, space agency says
달 착륙에도 태양전지 문제로 웃지만은 못한 日…"겨우 합격 60점"
착륙시 '마의 20분' 넘겼지만 태양전지 작동 안해…"배터리로는 몇시간 못버텨"
착륙 2시간 지나서야 기자회견…프로젝트 책임자는 '불참', 참석자들은 굳은 표정
태양 기울기 따라 전지 회생 가능성도…"달 표면에 접근할 길 열려"
Japan lunar landing: ‘Moon sniper’ mission reaches surface but appears to have failed, space agency says
ANDREW GRIFFIN January 20, 2024 at 4:50 AM Yahoo |
Japan is in contact with its newly arrived Moon lander, but it appears to be having technical problems, the country’s space agency has said.
The country sent its “Slim” spacecraft to the lunar surface, with the hope of becoming only the fifth country to successfully land on the moon. The lander arrived early on Saturday morning Japanese time, it said.
Since then, the spacecraft has been communicating with Earth but its solar panels are not generating electricity – and its batteries are rapidly running out, it said.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) did not know exactly why the solar panels were failing. It may be a result of the solar panels themselves failing but it might also be a result of the spacecraft landing at the wrong angle so that the panels did not face the sun, it said.
Journalists wait for an update on the success of the moon landing at JAXA’s Sagamihara Campus near Tokyo (Eugene Hoshiko/AP)
JAXA suggested that Slim is unlikely to stay online and that it was instead “maximising the amount of science” it is able to gather from the moon before its batteries run out.
It also said it was also working to gather as much data as possible on whether the moon lander might be able to come back online. An update will be provided next week.
The space agency also hopes to gather more information to find out whether the spacecraft had successfully landed on its very precise target. Japan has referred to the Slim spacecraft as the “moon sniper” because it aimed for a 100-metre-radius target, rather than the usual kilometres.
JAXA said it considered itself to have successfully made a “soft landing” on the surface since most of the spacecraft’s instruments were still working. If it had failed then its functions would have been lost completely, it argued.
If Slim had landed successfully, Japan would have become the fifth country to accomplish the feat, after the United States, the Soviet Union, China and India. It was launched on a Mitsubishi Heavy H2A rocket in September and it initially orbited Earth before entering lunar orbit on December 25.
Many countries and private companies have attempted their own landings and failed. The most recent came last week when a private space company, Astrobotic Technology, launched its Peregrine mission – which failed due to a fuel leak in space and it fell back down to Earth to burn up in the atmosphere.
As the Slim spacecraft descended, JAXA’s mission control said that everything was going as planned and later said that Slim was on the lunar surface. But, after it was supposed to have arrived, there was no mention of whether the landing was successful.
Mission control kept repeating that it was “checking its status” and that more information would be given at a news conference.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, in 2022 (AP)
At that news conference, JAXA representatives confirmed that communications had been made but that the spacecraft appeared to be losing power.
Slim started its descent at midnight on Saturday, and within 15 minutes it was down to about 10 kilometres above the lunar surface, JAXA said.
At an altitude of five kilometres, the lander was in a vertical descent mode, then, at 50 metres above the surface, Slim was supposed to make a parallel movement to find a safe landing spot, JAXA said.
About half an hour after its presumed landing, JAXA said that it was still checking the status of the lander. It was aiming to land near the Shioli crater, close to a region covered in volcanic rock.
Slim is a lightweight spacecraft about the size of a passenger vehicle. It was using “pinpoint landing” technology that promised far greater control than any previous moon landing.
While most previous probes have used landing zones about 10 kilometres wide, Slim was aiming at a target of just 100 metres.
The project was the fruit of two decades of work on precision technology by JAXA and the mission’s main goal was to test new landing technology that would allow moon missions to land “where we want to, rather than where it is easy to land”, JAXA has said.
Experts say that if Slim’s pinpoint landing was a success, especially on the moon, it would raise Japan‘s profile in the global space technology race.
Slim was carrying two small autonomous probes – lunar excursion vehicles LEV-1 and LEV-2 – which were released just before landing.
LEV-1, equipped with an antenna and a camera, recorded Slim’s landing. LEV-2 is a ball-shaped “rolly polly” rover equipped with two cameras, which will take pictures and transmit them back to Earth.
Japan aims to regain confidence in its space technology after a number of failures. A spacecraft designed by a Japanese company crashed during a lunar landing attempt in April, and a new flagship rocket failed its debut launch in March.
However, JAXA has a track record of achieving difficult landings. Its Hayabusa2 spacecraft, launched in 2014, touched down twice on the 900m-long asteroid Ryugu, collecting samples that were returned to Earth.
Additional reporting by agencies
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달 착륙에도 태양전지 문제로 웃지만은 못한 日…"겨우 합격 60점"
송고시간2024-01-20 11:13 박상현 기자 기자 페이지 연합뉴스
착륙시 '마의 20분' 넘겼지만 태양전지 작동 안해…"배터리로는 몇시간 못버텨"
착륙 2시간 지나서야 기자회견…프로젝트 책임자는 '불참', 참석자들은 굳은 표정
태양 기울기 따라 전지 회생 가능성도…"달 표면에 접근할 길 열려"
일본 달 탐사선 '슬림'의 착륙 모습 이미지
[EPA 연합뉴스 자료사진. 재판매 및 DB 금지]
(도쿄=연합뉴스) 박상현 특파원 = 일본이 20일 세계에서 5번째로 달 착륙에 성공했지만, 탐사선의 태양전지에 문제가 발생하면서 프로젝트를 주도한 일본 우주항공연구개발기구(JAXA)에는 침통한 분위기가 흘렀다고 현지 언론이 보도했다.
교도통신과 아사히신문 등에 따르면 JAXA는 이날 0시 20분께 달 탐사선 '슬림'(SLIM)이 착륙했음에도 2시간 가까이 지난 오전 2시 10분께서야 기자회견을 열었고, 회견에 참석할 예정이었던 프로젝트 책임자는 불참했다.
JAXA 관계자는 기자회견에서 "슬림이 20일 0시께 달 상공 15㎞에서 강하를 시작해 약 20분 뒤 달 적도 부근 표면에 착륙했고, 연착륙에 성공했다"며 "데이터를 정상적으로 지구에 보내고 있으며 대체로 잘 움직이고 있다"고 밝혔다.
그는 그러나 "슬림이 달 표면에 도달한 뒤 지구와 통신은 되지만 태양전지로 발전이 되지 않는 상황"이라고 설명했다.
슬림은 착륙 과정에서 맹렬한 속도를 급격히 줄여야 하는 '마(魔)의 20분'을 잘 넘긴 것처럼 보였으나, 잠시 후 태양전지가 발전하지 않는다는 사실이 확인됐다.
착륙할 때 기체의 자세가 흐트러져 태양전지에 태양광이 닿지 않는 상태가 됐을 가능성이 있는 것으로 파악됐다고 아사히는 전했다.
이 신문은 "JAXA는 슬림을 살리기 위해 '배터리 모드'로 전환했다"며 "배터리는 몇 시간밖에 쓸 수 없어 비행 중에 촬영한 영상을 송신하는 작업 때문에 책임자가 기자회견에 나올 수 없었다"고 설명했다.
이와 관련해 후지모토 마사키 JAXA 우주과학연구소 부소장은 기자회견에서 "빨리 무슨 일이 일어났는지 알고 싶다"며 "데이터를 얻기 위해 초조한 상황이라 좀처럼 웃음이 나오지 않는다"고 말했다.
발언하는 JAXA 이사
(사가미하라 AP=연합뉴스) 구니나카 히토시 일본 우주항공연구개발기구(JAXA) 이사(가운데)가 20일 가나가와현 사가미하라시에서 열린 달 탐사선 '슬림' 관련 기자회견에서 발언하고 있다.
슬림은 애초 달에 착륙한 뒤 태양전지로 발전해 특수 카메라로 달 표면 암석에 포함된 광물 종류 등을 조사할 예정이었다.
그러나 태양전지가 정상적으로 가동하지 않으면 며칠 동안 운용할 예정이었던 슬림은 몇 시간 만에 멈춰 버릴 수도 있다.
다만 태양의 기울기가 변해 태양전지에 햇빛이 닿으면 배터리가 소진되더라도 슬림이 다시 움직일 가능성이 있다고 아사히는 짚었다.
야마카와 히로시 JAXA 이사장은 "최저한의 성공은 했다"며 "일단 착륙했다는 것으로 달 표면에 접근할 길이 열렸다"고 말했다.
하지만 그는 이번 프로젝트에 대한 점수를 평가해 달라는 요청에 "겨우 합격인 60점"이라며 굳은 표정을 지었다고 교도통신은 전했다.
psh59@yna.co.kr
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