Succumbing to a swirling dust storm and the cold of an encroaching Martian winter, the Phoenix Mars lander fell quiet for a day, before coming back to life Thursday evening, albeit weakly.

The lander’s batteries appeared to have drained, mission managers said, with all systems, including its heaters, shut down. The mission managers had instructed the spacecraft to wake up and send word of its condition at 12:30 a.m. Thursday via the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which was passing overhead. It did not.

But the spacecraft is programmed with a so-called Lazarus mode that enables it to resuscitate itself and recharge its batteries during the day.

Image An image taken by the lander on Oct. 7, 2008, shows bluish-white frost on the Martian surface. Credit... NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M University

Once restarted, the lander conserved its energy for 17 hours, then tried to communicate for two hours with any orbiter passing overhead, repeating the cycle until it received new instructions.