Japan Loses Contact With Moon Lander, Fails Landing

A Japanese space company's dream of landing a moon lander on the Moon's surface ends badly.

Japanese private space startup Ispace recently announced it had lost contact with the lander it launched to the Moon moments before it was expected to land.

Ispace previously launched its moon lander in mid-December 2022 in cooperation with SpaceX and its Falcon 9 rocket, per Al Jazeera.

Ispace Moon Lander Issue Details

Ispace mentioned during a livestream that it lost contact with its moon lander hours before it was supposed to land on the Moon's surface, making it assume it could not complete its landing procedure.

The moon lander in question dubbed the Hakuto-R Mission 1 lander, suddenly sent no response to engineers in mission control after its expected 12:40 PM ET touchdown, per The Verge. The company later said in a statement that the data the lander sent back before it lost communication suggest that its descent speed rapidly increased after losing communications.

As a result, the Hakuto-R Mission 1 lander probably made a "hard landing" on the Moon's surface, which could mean it crashlanded on the lunar surface.

Had the landing been successful, it would have been Japan's first-ever lunar landing, making Ispace the first private company to reach the lunar surface, Kyodo News reports. It would also mean the successful release of the two rovers it is carrying: a four-wheeled one from the United Arab Emirates called Rashid, and a mini-rover Sony and Japanese toy company Tomy made, which vaguely resembles a droid from "Star Wars," per CNN and New Yorker, respectively.

These rovers would analyze the lunar soil and the Moon's geology and atmosphere, per the BBC.

Despite the probable crash landing, Ispace founder and CEO Takeshi Hakamada believes it "fully accomplished the significance of this mission" thanks to the data and experience it acquired from executing the lander's landing phase. The mission's primary aim was to assess the viability of commercial launches to the lunar surface.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida didn't lose faith in private space companies, especially startups, despite its failure to land its spacecraft. He stated that the government will continue to support space programs by startups, posting on Twitter, "I will continue to support Japanese startups' tireless challenge in space."

What Was The Hakuto-R Moon Lander?

Ispace's Hakuto-R Mission 1 Moon Lander is a spacecraft about 7.54 ft. in height and 8.5 ft. in width. It stands on four landing legs with a total footprint of 2.6x2.6 meters and has an octagonal prism that is 5.38 ft. high and about 5.38 ft. across its widest diameter, per NASA.

It has one main landing thruster and six assist thrusters; coupled with its octagonal body, It is capable of carrying 30 kg of payload to the lunar surface in protected compartments.

Though Ispace installed solar panels on the lander to generate power for it, the Moon's occupation of its field of view blocks the Sun for some time, which posed a challenge for power management and power generation, said Sasha Ivan Hurovitz, per the company's official website.