Japan’s space agency didn’t expect its wrong-side-up SLIM moon lander to revive itself after powering down for a circuit-chilling lunar night on Feb. 1. But that’s exactly what happened.
“Last night, a command was sent to SLIM and a response received, confirming that the spacecraft has made it through the lunar night and maintained communication capabilities!” the SLIM mission team reported today in a posting to X / Twitter.
This wasn’t SLIM’s first resurrection: The boxy spacecraft touched down and tumbled onto its side on Jan. 19-20, settling in a position where its solar arrays couldn’t charge up its batteries. To conserve power, mission managers put the probe into hibernation and waited for the sun’s rays to hit the panels at a more favorable angle.
The team was able to revive the lander and get a few days’ worth of science data before putting it back into hibernation. Mission managers thought that might have been the end. During the 14-day lunar night, surface temperatures were expected to fall to about 200 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (-130 degrees Celsius) — a deep-freeze that was colder than what SLIM was designed to endure.
The lunar night ended days ago. After giving SLIM’s solar panels a chance to charge up the batteries again, the team at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency decided to check in — and got the good news.
