Although Japan’s first lunar lander ended in failure, another EQUEELEUS satellite that took off on the SLS rocket sent back good news and successfully sent back pictures of the back of the moon.
The EQUEELEUS satellite (Equilibrium Lunar-Earth point 6U) was jointly developed by the University of Tokyo and JAXA. It is one of the 10 secondary payloads of NASA’s Artemis 1 mission. It was used after the Orion spacecraft separated from the SLS rocket.
Although carrying the same load of payloads, Japan’s first lunar lander named OMOTENASHI failed the mission because it could not establish contact, but JAXA confirmed that the EQUEELEUS satellite was operating in space. He flew over the moon on November 22 and took pictures back from the back of the moon, showing Craters of different sizes.
The EQUEELEUS satellite will eventually travel to the L2 Lagrangian point of the Earth-Moon system, on a mission to scan the Earth’s plasma layer to understand how to protect humans and electronic equipment from radiation damage during long-distance travel to the space.
▲ EQUULEUS photographed the far side of the moon.
(Image Source:Knight/Twitter)
/cloudfront-ap-northeast-1.images.arcpublishing.com/chosun/ARSUDERN6VL7BPL7KELR4F7RJQ.JPG?fit=300%2C300&ssl=1)
