Weekly - Japanese lander survives 2nd lunar night and more

Weekly Space News - Quick and Easy

Japanese lander survives 2nd lunar night

Last week, JAXA confirmed that its SLIM lunar lander had survived its second night on the moon. This is a big achievement for Japan as lunar nights are often very long and extremely cold and can damage landers since the moon has no atmosphere. There is also no sunlight available during the night. This makes it still more challenging and explains why landers like the Chandrayaan-3 did not survive even its first lunar night.

Skyroot Aerospace successfully tests rocket’s second stage

Last week, an Indian space startup Skyroot Aerospace successfully completed testing of its rocket’s second stage. Skyroot is the only Indian startup to ever launch a rocket into space successfully, but that rocket was not designed for orbit or to put satellites into orbit. Now Skyroot is aiming to make its rocket orbit ready. The rocket named “Vikram-1” just finished testing its second stage. This stage is primarily used to carry the rocket from the Earth’s atmosphere to outer space after the first stage boosters and engines have done their part after launch.