Although the editor wrote on November 19 that Japan's probe "Haohoku" preparing to "land" on the moon was missing, it finally became a hot spot after being reported by the Global Times and other official media today. The specific reason for the loss of contact is said to be that the detector rotates at high speed at an angular speed of 80 degrees per second, which is beyond the Japanese attitude control adjustment range, and the solar panels cannot be aimed at the sun to charge, and now even communication is very difficult and has lost contact.
r Japan Hospitality lunar landing probe
This is its entity
It is said that "Hospitality" is a lunar landing probe, but in fact it is only a tiny satellite with a size of only 12×24×37 cm and a weight of only 12.6 kg, and its brother "Pony" was carried on the American SLS rocket successfully launched on October 16, and is going to the moon with the "Orion" spacecraft. However, because "Hospitality" carries an airbag lunar lander weighing only 0.7 kilograms and plans to hit the moon at a speed of about 30 meters per second, it is dubbed the false name of "moon landing", which is stronger than Japan's launch of "Lunar Goddess" in 2007, which can only orbit in lunar orbit like Chang'e 1 and 2.
It turned out to be so big
It planned to land on the moon like this, pitiful
But obviously, "Hospitality" is the world's smallest lunar probe, similar to a mini version of Chang'e-3, although it is now missing, but Japan will become the world's fourth country to successfully land on the moon dream, is still doing, because on the 28th of this month, Japan's second lunar probe M1 is about to be launched again.
Japan's M1 lunar probe
M1, part of Japan's White Rabbit-R program, was launched on November 28, 2022, with a landing in late March or early April 2023. Unlike the mini "Hospitality", the M1 is almost 2.3 meters high, about 2.6 meters wide, and weighs about 340 kilograms, although it is not large, but compared to the 12.6 kilogram "Hospitality", it is still like a mountain. The second difference is that the second lunar probe was actually developed by Ispace, a private Japanese space company, and it was all commercial activities from launch to landing.
It turned out to be developed by a private company
The body size is also very small
Chang'e-5 weighs 8.2 tons, more than 24 times more
It is worth mentioning that the "Rashid" lunar rover that the UAE planned to carry on the mainland Chang'e-7 probe some time ago is actually the second one, and the first one is carrying the M1 lunar lander of Japan's Ispace, which will land with Japan's own "lunar rover".
The M1 is going to bring two lunar rovers
The reason why Japan's own "lunar rover" is in double quotation marks is because its shape and size are like a baseball, and I don't know why, the Japanese always like to work hard in small ways. After landing on the lunar surface, the "lunar rover" will unfold from the middle, relying on the rotation of the two hemispheres to walk, like a toy bought by Xiaobian for children, and it is known to the outside world, and it is precisely because Ispace made it into a toy and exposed.
This is also called a lunar rover?
Two lunar probes have been launched within a year, and it seems that Japanese space seems to be quite busy, but in fact, "Hospitality" was launched by a new generation of American lunar spacecraft, and the M1 lunar lander was carried on SpaceX's "Falcon" 9 multiplex rocket, just like South Korea's "Shared Moon" probe a few months ago. And Japan's own launch vehicle, which launched only one this year, also exploded, with a success rate of zero, it is the small solid rocket "Epsilon", which failed to launch on October 12, and all eight small satellites fell into the Pacific Ocean.
Japan launched a failed small solid rocket
In this way, almost all of the spacecraft launched by Japan this year have failed, which makes the fate of Ispace's M1 lunar lander full of risks, as well as Japan's three H-3 rockets. Japan was ambitious at the beginning of the year, claiming to launch 3 new generation H3 rockets this year, one of which will also carry a new generation of lunar cargo spacecraft HTV-X1, but now it is mid-to-late November, H3 has just solved the outrageous problem of the previous rocket engine combustion chamber rupture, not long ago just planted on the launch pad, for the real forced ignition test, I don't know what the final result is, but at least in the remaining month of this year, it is impossible to launch all 3, A big firework is worth looking forward to.
Japanese H3 rocket