Japan's Moon lander survives second lunar night

Japan's Moon lander woke up after unexpectedly surviving a second frigid, two-week lunar night and transmitted new images back to Earth, the country's space agency said yesterday.

The unmanned Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) probe touched down in January, making Japan only the fifth nation to reach the lunar surface without crashing.

But the lightweight spacecraft landed at a wonky angle that left its solar panels facing the wrong way.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency announced the probe's latest surprise awakening in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

"We received a response from SLIM last night and confirmed that SLIM had successfully completed its second overnight," it said.

A black-and-white photo of the rocky surface of a crater accompanied the post on SLIM's official account.

"Since the sun was still high in the sky ... and the equipment was still hot, we recorded images of the usual scenery with the navigational camera, among other activities, for a short period of time," it said.

Thursday's news came an uncrewed American lander called Odysseus – the first private spaceship to successfully land on the Moon -- had failed to wake up.

Its manufacturer, the Houston-based Intuitive Machines, had hoped the lander might revive like Japan's SLIM, but on Saturday declared the lander's mission over.

The Intuitive Machines spaceship also landed at the wrong angle but was able to complete several tests and send back photos before the most recent lunar night began.

JAXA has dubbed SLIM the 'Moon Sniper' for its precision landing technology.

— AFP photo A handout photo released by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and credited to JAXA, Takara Tomy, Sony Group Corporation and Doshisha University shows an image of the lunar surface taken and transmitted by LEV-2 “SORA-Q” the transformable lunar surface robot “SORA-Q” (operation verification model) after landing on the Moon on Jan 20.