Moon rover, lander wake after lunar night

China's moon rover Yutu (Jade Rabbit) and the Chang'e-3 lander have just "woken up" after a period of dormancy that lasted two weeks, or one lunar night, in a move designed to ride out harsh climactic conditions.

Yutu awakened autonomously at 5:09 am on Saturday and has finished necessary setting procedures and entered a normal working mode following orders from the Beijing Aerospace Control Center, according to a statement from the BACC on Sunday.

It has started its rove around the moon surface on scientific missions.

Chang'e-3 also awakened automatically at 8:21 am on Sunday and is in normal condition, the statement said.

One night on the moon lasts about 14 days on Earth, during which the temperature falls below -180 C and there is no sunlight to provide power to the instruments' solar panels.

"During the lunar night, the lander and the rover were in a power-off condition and communication with Earth was also cut off," said Zhou Jianliang, chief engineer of the BACC.

"When the night ends, they will started up with the power provided by the sunlight and resume operations and communication according to preset programs," Zhou said.

The awakening of the rover and lander marks the success of Chinese technology to survive the lunar night, and the center will instruct the two instruments to carry on scheduled exploration missions, the chief engineer added.

Chang'e-3 soft-landed on the moon's Sinus Iridium, or the Bay of Rainbows, on Dec 14, and Yutu later separated from the lander.

The rover fell asleep on Dec 26 as the mission's first lunar night arrived.