TOKYO: There is a “possibility” that Japan’s lander that made a historic lunar touchdown on Saturday but suffered a solar battery problem can be restored, the country’s space agency said.

“According to the telemetry data, SLIM’s solar cells are facing west. So if sunlight hits the Moon from the west in the future, we believe there’s a possibility of power generation, and we’re currently preparing for restoration,” the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said.

Japan “switched off” its Moon lander almost three hours after a historic touchdown on Saturday, to allow for a potential future recovery of the craft, they said Monday.

“We were able to complete the transmission of technical and image data acquired during the descent and on the lunar surface before the power was switched off… a lot of data has been obtained,” JAXA said.

AFP