Japanese spacecraft SLIM regains contact with Earth after enduring lunar night

Earlier this year, the Japanese lander, SLIM, made history by accurately landing on the Moon's surface, a first in the realm of space exploration. Despite initial success, the vehicle then lost contact with Earth. However, on Monday, JAXA confirmed that communication had been reinstated. Mission workers are referring to this event as a "miracle" because the lander was not engineered to endure the lunar night when temperatures plummet to -203 degrees Celsius.

"Last night, a command was issued to SLIM, receiving a response that validated that SLIM survived a night on the Moon while preserving its communication capabilities!" - JAXA reported in a post on platform X.

Prior to the mission, JAXA placed considerable emphasis on the fact that SLIM was not constructed to tolerate the harsh conditions of the fortnightly lunar night. The "lunar sniper", as the lander is also known due to the precision of the landing technology it uses, touched down on the Moon on Saturday, January 20. Even though the primary mission objective, a precise landing, was achieved, it came to light that the vehicle's solar cells were misaligned and were unable to generate power. This brought the execution of further mission objectives into question.

Fortunately, by the eighth day, SLIM had regained power owing to a shift in the direction of sunlight. For several days after, it collected geological data from lunar rocks and proceeded into hibernation at the end of January to weather the lunar night.

In another platform X post, the team announced on Monday that communication with SLIM ceased after a brief period as it was lunar noon and the communication equipment's temperature had significantly escalated.

"We managed to take pictures with SLIM's navigation camera during the night operation!" - revealed the agency in another post, attaching a photograph of the lunar landscape.

As the Moon's temperature decreases, JAXA aims to verify SLIM's functionalities, including a camera capable of observing lunar surface minerals. This camera is expected to assist in discovering clues about the Moon's origin by comparing the mineral composition of lunar and Earth rocks.