Japan's Moon lander has 'resumed operations' after power restored

Japan's Moon lander has resumed operations, the space agency said, indicating that power had been restored.

"Last evening we succeeded in establishing communication with SLIM, and resumed operations," JAXA said on X, formerly Twitter.

"We immediately started scientific observations with MBC, and have successfully obtained first light for 10-band observation," it said, referring to the lander's multiband spectroscopic camera.

The agency also posted on X an image shot by the probe of "toy poodle", a rock observed near the lander.

The touchdown earlier this month made Japan only the fifth nation to achieve a soft lunar landing, after the United States, the Soviet Union, China and India.

But after the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) touched down, JAXA had said that it could not confirm that the lightweight craft's solar batteries were generating power.

(AFP)