\n<\/p>\n
Japan’s moon lander woke up after unexpectedly surviving a second frigid, two-week lunar night and transmitted new images back to Earth, the country’s space agency said Thursday.<\/p>\n The unmanned Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) probe touched down in January, making Japan only the fifth nation to reach the lunar surface without crashing.<\/p>\n But the lightweight spacecraft landed at a wonky angle that left its solar panels facing the wrong way.<\/p>\n The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency announced the probe’s latest surprise awakening in a post on X, formerly Twitter.<\/p>\n “We received a response from SLIM last night and confirmed that SLIM had successfully completed its second overnight,” it said.<\/p>\n A black-and-white photo of the rocky surface of a crater accompanied the post on SLIM’s official account.<\/p>\n “Since the sun was still high in the sky… 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 said.<\/p>\n Thursday’s news came after an uncrewed American lander called Odysseus\u2014the first private spaceship to successfully land on the moon\u2014had failed to wake up.<\/p>\n Its manufacturer, the Houston-based Intuitive Machines, had hoped the lander might revive like Japan’s SLIM, but on Saturday declared the lander’s mission over.<\/p>\n The Intuitive Machines spaceship also landed at the wrong angle but was able to complete several tests and send back photos before the most recent lunar night began.<\/p>\n JAXA has dubbed SLIM the “Moon Sniper” for its precision landing technology.<\/p>\n The aim of its mission was to examine a part of the moon’s mantle\u2014the usually deep inner layer beneath its crust\u2014believed to be accessible at the crater where it landed.<\/p>\n About three hours after its nail-biting touchdown on January 20, JAXA switched the lander off remotely to save power, having received technical and image data from its descent.<\/p>\n As the sun’s angle shifted, the probe came back to life in late January for two days and carried out scientific observations of a crater with a high-spec camera.<\/p>\n JAXA says the spacecraft was “not designed for the harsh lunar nights”, when the temperature plunges below minus 130 degrees Celsius (-200 degrees Fahrenheit).<\/p>\n So scientists had cause for celebration when SLIM successfully woke up in late February against the odds.<\/p>\n The SLIM saga has been a boon for the space agency after a string of high-profile failures, including two previous Japanese lunar missions\u2014one public and one private.<\/p>\n The country unsuccessfully sent a lunar probe named Omotenashi as part of the United States’ Artemis 1 mission in 2022.<\/p>\n Then in April 2023, Japanese startup ispace lost communication with its craft after what it described as a “hard landing”.<\/p>\n This year Japan’s space fortunes have also been mixed.<\/p>\n In February JAXA toasted a successful blast-off for its new flagship H3 rocket.<\/p>\n But two weeks ago a different rocket made by the Tokyo-based company Space One exploded into flames in a spectacular failure for the start-up’s bid to put a satellite into orbit.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \u00a9 2024 AFP\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCitation<\/strong>: \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no‘Moon Sniper’<\/h2>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJapan moon probe survives second lunar night (2024, March 28)
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tretrieved 28 March 2024
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tfrom\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n