Japanese lander survives the night of the second moon.

The SLIM lander survived the longest lunar night with temperatures dropping to -130 degrees Celsius for the second consecutive time.

This is a photo of the lunar surface that the SLIM spacecraft sent back after waking up on the second night. Photo: JAXA

Members of the SLIM mission announced the news on March 27th, accompanied by a new photo taken by the lander's navigation camera. SLIM (Synthetic Lunar Lander) launched last September and landed on January 19th, making Japan the fifth country to have a soft landing on the Moon (the other four being the Soviet Union, the United States, China, and India), according to Space .

The solar-powered SLIM spacecraft landed upside down, not in the optimal orientation for collecting light. The 200 kg probe lost contact shortly afterward but awoke on January 28th and began collecting data. The mission team put SLIM into hibernation mode for several days before the two-week lunar eclipse. During that time, ground temperatures at the landing site dropped to around -130 degrees Celsius.

SLIM achieved the basic objectives of its mission, including a precise landing, the deployment of two small autonomous robots, and the conduct of a series of scientific experiments. At the time, no one thought the spacecraft could continue operating. But the probe did, reviving itself late last month. Now, SLIM is back in operation for a second time, although extreme conditions are beginning to affect the spacecraft.

"According to the data obtained, some temperature sensors and battery cells began to malfunction, but most of the functions that worked after the first lunar night could still be used after the second lunar night," the mission team said.

A month after SLIM's landing in January, the Odysseus lander, built and operated by the private company Intuitive Machines in Houston, also successfully landed. The Odysseus landing marked the first time a privately owned spacecraft had achieved this feat and the first American vehicle on the Moon since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. Odysseus operated for a week before going into sleep mode before the first lunar night. Last week, Intuitive Machines announced the end of the Odysseus mission because the lander was permanently inoperable.

An Khang (According to Space )

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