Japan Lander Survives Another Freezing Lunar Night to Wake Up Again!

Tokyo: Japan’s unmanned Moon lander, Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM), survived another two-week lunar night to wake up and send new images back to Earth.

“We received a response from SLIM last night and confirmed that SLIM had successfully completed its second overnight,” the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said on Thursday in a post on X .

“Since the sun was still high in the sky last night and the equipment was still hot, we recorded images of the usual scenery with the navigational camera, among other activities, for a short period of time,” it added.

A black-and-white photo of the rocky surface of a crater accompanied the post on X.

The SLIM lander reached the lunar surface in January but it landed at a wonky angle that left its solar panels facing the wrong way.

With it Japan became the fifth nation to touch down on the Moon.

Although the lander was not designed for the freezing, fortnight-long lunar nights, yet it was successfully revived in late February after its first lunar night.