Tokyo:
Japan’s intrepid lunar lander went back to sleep after an unexpected second long, ultra-cold lunar night, the Japanese space agency said on Monday.
The Lunar Smart Lander (SLIM), known as the “Moon Sniper” for its landing accuracy, landed in January, making Japan the fifth country to achieve a soft landing on the moon.
But the unmanned, lightweight spacecraft, carrying a mini rover that moves like a turtle, landed at an unstable angle, causing its solar panels to face the wrong way.
Contrary to pessimistic predictions, the probe restarted in late February, after the end of the lunar night, which lasted about 14 Earth days.
It repeated the feat last week and beamed new images back to Earth, despite facing temperatures as low as -130 degrees Celsius (-200 degrees Fahrenheit).
On Monday, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced that the probe had gone into hibernation again on Sunday.
“In this operation, we mainly checked the status of multiple devices by turning on switches and applying loads,” JAXA said on social media platform X.
“Although some functions of the MBC have experienced some malfunctions, it is still working, so we are carefully checking its status,” it said, referring to the multi-band camera used to examine lunar rocks.
Certain types of rocks around lunar craters are thought to contain material from the moon’s mantle, which could provide clues about how the moon formed.
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