Landing upside down is what they call "the glitch"? How could that be fixed, did it have some way to restore its position? Or only the solar cells were turned upside up? What happened there in the end?
The engine nozzles that are now directed upwards were intended to remain on one lateral side. The lander was supposed to rotate one quarter turn after landing, to bring the engine nozzles from downside to a lateral side. Instead of that, it has rotated a half of turn, bringing the nozzles upside, due to an excessive horizontal speed at contact.
The solar panels are now on one lateral side instead of on the upper side.
Initially that lateral side was opposite to the Sun. After the Moon has rotated, the Sun has begun to illuminate the panels, though it is likely that the generated power has remained much lower than intended.
If they can no longer move it, they will have to save power, because they will be able to recharge the battery only during a small part of the Lunar day.
The description "lateral side" only makes sense if the engines are the "bottom" of the craft. Then it did in fact land upside down. Otherwise the engine side would count as a "lateral side".
However the side with engines was not intended to be the bottom of the craft after landing.
Another side has legs and it was intended to become the bottom side after landing, by a quarter turn rotation from the flight orientation.
That went wrong by making an extra quarter turn rotation.
I have used "lateral side" as corresponding to the intended orientation after landing, not corresponding to the orientation during flight.
The engine side was intended to be a lateral side after landing, but instead of that it has become the upper side.
What counts is that the lander has made only a quarter turn of additional rotation compared to the original plan, not an additional half turn, as implied by "landing upside down".
In that sense, the probe on its head up in the sand is only sideways, not upside down. In the sense that the probe is oriented the way it supposed to while on the rocket(it's sitting on the edge of PAF attachment plane and two forward legs), it's right side up.
Nevertheless, IMO, "upside down" is a close-enough description of the situation.
|
-*-
|
_X_X_X_ K
| |=K
|_______| K
---------------
where: X is throttle
K is solar panel
* is the sunSo
┌─────┐ ┌─────┐ │ │ │ │ │ ├────►│ │ │ │ │ │ └─────┘ └─────┘
Becomes
┌─────┐ ┌─────┐
│ │ │ │
│ ├────►│ │
│ │ │ │
└─────┘ └─────┘
During the remaining three days, JAXA has announced that they will focus on optical observations of the surrounding environment (specifically, some rocks in the surrounding area). So it is hard to imagine they will do this hard schedule of risky additional operations to restore the attitude.
turn cam on. take pictures of rocks.
> The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa) said it re-established contact with the lander on Sunday, indicating that the glitch had been fixed.
Being pedantic, the passive voice there doesn't give credit to anyone; the sun moving into a valid position for the current configuration could indeed have caused the glitch to be fixed.
I think the question is what exactly was "fixed?" Waiting for the sun to change position isn't a fix. The situation is still the same.
In that sense, it's fixed.
"Upside down hiragana right yourself". "Mirrored upside down hiragana right yourself".
And 31284 related emoji.
https://youtu.be/nvXLt3ET9mE?t=1384
Here's how I gather it actually landed:
https://static.euronews.com/articles/stories/08/19/58/62/120...
Scott Manley describes it in more detail (don't miss the hilarity around 4:48): https://youtu.be/7bFiJvbKyPs
But does it mean it won't actually 'survive' ?
What's survival in this case, getting enough power from the solar panel to boot up and transmit again, when the next day comes?
Many spacecraft have a radioactive heat source to heat themselves through the cold stretches. It seems for this one, primarily aimed at developing landing methods, that wasn't thought to be worth it.