Japanese exploration robot “Moon Sniper” resumes operations on the moon’s surface

Tokyo (CNN) — Japanese robotic explorer “Moon Sniper” is back in action, the country’s space agency reported Monday, ten days after landing on the moon after an electrical problem forced the spacecraft to shut down.

The rover made a perfect landing on January 19, making Japan the fifth country to place a spacecraft on the lunar surface, but it encountered a serious problem almost immediately.

According to NASA Aerospace Exploration Agency Japan (JAXA), the spacecraft landed in the wrong direction after one of its engines failed during landing, meaning its solar cells were unable to generate electricity and it had to rely on limited battery power .

The agency shut down the lunar rover to conserve its batteries and said it would automatically restart if its solar panels began generating electricity by changing the angle of the moon.

This Monday, JAXA announced on social media platforms

He told that the rover has also taken new pictures of the moon’s surface.

Its mission can be considered at least a “minimal success,” the agency said, as it achieved a precise and smooth landing using optical navigation. Now, Japan intends to use the lander to gather unprecedented information about an area of ​​the moon called the Nectar Sea.

The spacecraft landed near a crater called Shioli — a Japanese feminine name — about 200 miles south of the Sea of ​​Tranquility, the area near the lunar equator where Apollo 11 first landed astronauts on the Moon.

Over the past year, several space agencies and countries have attempted to carry out lunar landing missions, with some failures and other historic firsts.

India became the fourth country after the United States, the former Soviet Union and China to conduct a controlled landing on the Moon when its Chandrayaan-3 mission approached the Moon’s south pole in August.

The new lunar space race is partly driven by countries’ desire to access water trapped as ice in permanently shadowed areas of the lunar south pole. This water can be used as drinking water or fuel as humanity pushes the boundaries of space exploration in the future.

—CNN’s Jacopo Prisco, Ashley Strickland and Jackie Wattles contributed to this report.