This weekend, which I thought was full of relaxation, was violently stuffed by a series of space events, squeezing, and stirring the space world, which happened on the same day - January 19.
- Tianzhou No. 6 re-entry
Nearly 43 hours after the Tianzhou-7 cargo spacecraft first used a three-hour rapid rendezvous and docking with China's space station, the Tianzhou-6 spacecraft, which carried out the previous cargo replenishment mission, re-entered the atmosphere at 20:37 Beijing time on January 19.
In order to make room for Tianzhou-7 to dock and pave the way for its final curtain call, Tianzhou-6 withdrew from China's space station on January 12 this year and began its independent flight phase, during which it also released a test satellite developed by Dalian University of Technology. In the end, Tianzhou-6 drew a perfect end to itself with a mission duration of 252 days, 23 hours and 14 minutes.
▲The last selfie of the Peregrine Falcon before re-entry
- Re-entry of the Yu Hayabusa
On the same day, specifically at about 16 o'clock EST on January 18 (5 o'clock Beijing time on the 19th), the U.S. Peregrine lunar lander re-entered and ablated and destroyed over the South Pacific, ending a ten-day space journey.
On January 8 this year, as the first payload of the maiden flight of the Vulcan rocket, the Peregrine lunar lander originally destined for the Moon Sticky Bay, 380,000 kilometers away, but just a few hours after entering orbit, a propellant leak accident unfortunately occurred, resulting in it unable to enter the established Earth-Moon transfer orbit, and finally under the control of the mission team of the Astrorobotics Company, the developer of the Peregrine Lunar Lander, the Peregrine Falcon flew back to Earth after 10 days of flying in a high elliptical orbit, and finally re-entered the atmosphere in a controlled manner to avoid becoming space junk.
The accident has taught developer Astrobotic a lesson, especially for the launch of the larger and more important Griffin 1 lunar lander in November, which will carry NASA's special VIPER (Viper lunar rover) aimed at the south pole of the moon, and the success or failure of the subsequent Artemis manned mission to the moon will have a great impact.
The Peregrine Falcon accident has also had a big impact on American colleagues, such as Intuitive Machines, another U.S. company involved in NASA's commercial payload service program on the moon, which will deploy the company's first lunar lander, IM-1, next month. If it succeeds, all glory goes to the intuitive machine Nova-C lunar lander, and if it fails, it's the second Peregrine Falcon. As a result, the space company has become more cautious in its vetting process on the eve of launch.
● Moon Sniper: Landing successful, charging failed
Still on January 19, specifically at 23:20 Beijing time on January 19 and 00:20 Tokyo time on January 20, the small unmanned lunar lander SLIM, nicknamed "Moon Sniper" by Japanese Aerospace, successfully landed on the surface of the south pole of the moon, becoming the fifth country in the world to land on the moon after the former Soviet Union, the United States, China, and India.
The lunar lander was launched aboard a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries H-IIA rocket on September 7, 2023, entered lunar orbit on December 25, and successfully landed on the moon at midnight from January 19 to 20. However, the JAXA mission team did not learn of this news immediately, but NASA's deep space network sent instructions to the SLIM lunar lander and its two miniature lunar rovers, and finally the Madrid site received telemetry data to reveal a soft landing. At this time, an hour has passed since the scheduled landing time (00:20 Tokyo time on January 20).
Two hours after the scheduled landing, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), the equivalent of the Japan National Space Agency, held a press conference to confirm the successful moon landing, but JAXA officials did not smile because they announced the bad news that the lunar lander's solar system had some kind of malfunction, and telemetry data showed that it could not be charged properly. This means that the lunar sniper lunar lander will run out of battery within hours of landing, unable to receive commands or transmit telemetry and scientific data back to Earth.
Of course, there is also the possibility that the lunar lander landed in the wrong direction, and that the angle between the sun and the solar cells improved over time enough to generate enough power to hope that the lunar sniper would wake up at some point. It's not impossible, but the odds of luck don't seem to be very high, or very small.
There is also good fortune in misfortune. In the hours before the lunar lander's battery ran out, JAXA sent a series of commands to successfully separate two miniature lunar rovers (LEV-1 and LEV-2), which were only the size of tennis balls, from the lunar lander and successfully deployed them to the lunar surface. According to JAXA disclosures, most of the equipment carried by the lunar lander is functional. The biggest anticipation for this is the "miracle moment" of solar cells.
●The Witty lost contact
Bad news came back not only from the Moon, but also from the Red Planet more distant. On January 19, Eastern time, NASA's Perseverance Mars mission team announced bad news: on January 18, the team lost contact with the Ingenuity helicopter. At the time, the 1.8-kilogram probe helicopter was on its 72nd mission, and after successfully climbing to a maximum altitude of 40 feet (12 meters), it suddenly lost contact with the Perseverance rover during the scheduled ascent. Although the NASA mission team has been trying to make contact without interruption, there has been no good news so far. I'm afraid there will be more than one luck.
As we know, in February 2021, NASA's Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter successfully landed in the ancient Jezero Delta on Mars, starting a new mode of ground-to-air joint exploration, and the Ingenuity helicopter became the first rotorcraft helicopter in human history to fly on another planet. Initial expectations were not high, and it was hoped that it would be able to successfully achieve five flight demonstrations, but the results were repeatedly unexpected, from the initial five to 10, and from 10 to 20 and 30...... To date, there have been 72 flights, with a cumulative flight duration of more than 128 minutes and a distance of 11 miles (17.7 km).
As those of us who have stepped on the earth and are fascinated by Mars, at this moment, our greatest wish is to look forward to the reconnection of Ingenuity, and pray for another miracle for mankind's first aircraft to explore the alien sky beyond the earth.