A Japanese corporation attempting a rare private Moon landing says its lunar lander likely crashed.
Hakuto-R lost contact just before landing on Tuesday at 16:40 GMT.Engineers investigate. The Tokyo-based company iSpace believed the lander would release a tennis-ball-sized automaton and an exploratory rover. The spacecraft was launched by SpaceX in December, and it arrived five months later. "We have not confirmed communication with the lander," the CEO of iSpace, Takeshi Hakamada, said 25 minutes after the scheduled touchdown. "We must assume that we could not complete the lunar landing," he added. Mr. Hakamada later stated that the company had "completely accomplished the significance of this mission, acquiring a great deal of data and experience by executing the landing phase" despite not finishing. A live animation depicted the M1 lander coming within 295 feet (89 meters) of the lunar surface.
The 340-kilogram, 2-meter-tall lander was diminutive for a lunar expedition. From its orbit 100 kilometers above the surface at approximately 6,000 kilometers per hour, a one-hour landing maneuver was planned. After landing in the northern hemisphere of the Moon, the Hakuto-R deployed two payloads to investigate its geology, atmosphere, and soil. TOMY, the company that created Transformers, created one. Only government-sponsored programs in the United States, Russia, and China have deposited robots on the moon. The Beresheet mission was the first private landing on the Moon in 2019. It orbited the moon, but upon descent it crashed. The Japanese mission's primary objective was to conduct commercial lunar launches. It was the first of three ambitious commercial landers planned by iSpace over the next three years.
To support a human presence on the moon, the company desires to convey mining and rocket fuel equipment. According to Dr. Adam Baker, director of Rocket Engineering, a successful landing would have signified a "step change" in commercial space exploration. "If it is affordable and repeatable, it opens the door for anyone willing to pay the cost to land something on the Moon's surface," he told BBC.
