The Japanese spacecraft “Moon Sniper” survived the second lunar night: it sent a new photo

The Japanese spacecraft “Moon Sniper” survived the second lunar night: it sent a new photo


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The Japanese lunar sniper spacecraft survived a long and cold lunar night for the second time.

After waking up, the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) unmanned lander sent a new photo of the Moon’s surface back to Earth. Him published mission team.

The Lunar Sniper captured the image using the lander’s navigation camera.

The development company JAXA notes that the extreme conditions on the moon are already affecting the operation of the device. In particular, temperature sensors and unused battery cells begin to malfunction.

However, most of the functions remained even after the second lunar night.

SLIM took the image using the lander's navigation camera

SLIM took the image using the lander’s navigation camera

Photo: twitter.com/SLIM_JAXA

As a reminder, SLIM landed on the moon in January.

After landing, he immediately had problems with the solar panels – they were facing the wrong way, so they were not producing energy.

When the angle of inclination of the Sun changed, the device was powered on for two days and managed to conduct scientific observations of the lunar crater.

With the return of darkness, the “Moon Sniper” again “fell asleep” and it was not clear whether he would “wake up” again. However, he managed to survive the first night on the surface of the moon, while maintaining his communication function.





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