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For a spacecraft that landed the other way up on the floor of the Moon's south pole, the Japanese slim lunar lander is displaying completely exceptional resilience, because the spacecraft appeared to 'get up' from its second lunar night time earlier this week!
You may bear in mind this unbelievable story right here on TGP:
The primary was: Oh, no: The Japanese skinny lunar lander is the other way up on the moon's floor!
it grew to become: Slim is again: Upside-down Japanese moon lander recharges batteries and lunar mission resumes
after this, Slim Moon lander 'sleeps' once more for lunar night time – Japanese area company will try and restart spacecraft in two weeks
And at last:
Slim is again: Upside-down Japanese moon lander recharges batteries and lunar mission resumes
So, SLIM is 'alive'.
The 'Moon Sniper' survived its second chilly lunar night time, as mission group members introduced the information on X, in a put up that additionally included a photograph lately captured by the lander's navigation digicam.
House.com reported:
SLIM, quick for “Good Lander for Investigating the Moon,” launched final September and landed on Jan. 19, making Japan the fifth nation to attain a mushy lunar landing. (The opposite 4 are the Soviet Union, the US, China, and India.)
The solar-powered SLIM landed on its nostril that day, in a lower than optimum orientation for receiving daylight. The 440-pound (200 kg) probe shut down shortly thereafter, however then awakened on January 28 and started accumulating information.
The mission group put SLIM into hibernation a number of days later forward of a two-week lunar night time, throughout which the floor temperature at its location dropped to minus 208 levels Fahrenheit (minus 130 levels Celsius).
Final night time, we acquired a response from #slim, confirming that the spacecraft handed the lunar night time for the second time! For the reason that solar was nonetheless robust and the tools was nonetheless sizzling, we solely took a number of photographs of basic surroundings with the navigation digicam. #good aftermoon pic.twitter.com/5BjIr7vxMG
SLIM (@SLIM_JAXA) 28 March 2024
With two 'revivals' to its credit score, 'Moon Sniper' is beginning to undergo from scorching temperatures.
“'In line with the information acquired, some temperature sensors and unused battery cells have begun to deteriorate, however a lot of the features left within the first lunar night time had been maintained after the second lunar night time!' Mission group members stated One other X put up on Wednesday night time.”
In an extra put up, Mission Management wrote: 'Final night time, the temperature dropped a bit, so I acquired uncompressed information from the navigation digicam that was taken the opposite day. The space to the cross-shaped crater within the distance is about 7 km, and the gap to the mountain behind it’s about 29 km. The sense of distance is sort of totally different from Earth as a result of there is no such thing as a atmospheric haze and the gap to the horizon is totally different.'