Jan. 29 (UPI) — Japan’s moon lander regained power and resumed operations after days of silence as it landed upside down.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said late Sunday that communications with its Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, were established on Saturday night and that operations had resumed with its Multi-Band Camera back online.

“Science observations were immediately started with the [Multi Band Camera] and we obtained first light for the 10-band observation,” said JAXA.

News of an operating SLIM thrilled the space agency, which held out hope that the sun would begin powering the built-in solar panels on the spacecraft enough for it to begin its scientific work, which includes trying to find clues of the moon’s origins.

Before SLIM lost power shortly after landing on Jan. 20, it took pictures of the moon’s landscape and rocks.

“Based on this landscape image, the team is sorting out rocks of interest, assigning a nickname to each of them, with the intent of communicating their relative sizes smoothly by the names,” JAXA said in a statement.

The nicknames include Toy Poodle, Bulldog, St. Bernard, Akitainu, Shibainu and Kaiken.

SLIM had deployed small exploratory robots on the moon’s surface to conduct scientific activities. The LEV-1 and LEV-2 robots tested radio wave transmissions among other movements, JAXA said.

JAXA scientists are looking for evidence of material on the moon’s surface that may have come from its mantle, a layer near the satellite’s core.