Japan’s Moon Lander SLIM: A Second Attempt at Revival After Lunar Night

Japan’s space agency, JAXA, announced on Tuesday its plans to revive the unmanned Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) after enduring a second chilling, two-week lunar night. This follows an unexpected reactivation last month.

The SLIM, which landed in January, unfortunately did so at an awkward angle, causing its solar panels to face the wrong direction. However, as the sun’s angle shifted, it sprung back to life for two days, conducting scientific observations of a crater using a high-spec camera.

Designed without the capacity to withstand the freezing, fortnight-long lunar nights where temperatures plummet to minus 133 degrees, the probe was shut down in early February. It was subsequently awakened weeks later, only to be put back to sleep in early March, in anticipation of another scheduled operation attempt.

JAXA expressed hope on Tuesday that “there will be enough sunlight on the solar cells to start up SLIM around this evening”. The project team is set to commence operations today to restart SLIM after the second lunar night, as announced in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

However, JAXA added that it remains uncertain if SLIM would respond on Tuesday night, given its exposure to extreme temperatures.