Japanese startup ispace, which was trying to become the first private company to successfully land on the moon, lost contact with its lunar lander at the scheduled time of its landing, the company's boss said Wednesday.
"We lost communication, so we have to consider that we could not complete the landing on the surface of the moon," said Takeshi Hakamada, leader and founder of ispace. "Our engineers will continue to analyze the situation," he added, promising to give more information as soon as possible.
The Hakuto-R lander program, which had been in orbit some 100 kilometers above the moon for a month, had begun its descent to the lunar surface about an hour earlier. A complex maneuver, carried out entirely automatically.
Several rovers on board
Everything seemed to be going according to plan, but several tens of minutes of anxious waiting after the planned moment of landing, during which the company's teams tried to restore communication with the lunar lander, the boss ended up speaking on the company's live video, announcing the bad news and assuring that ispace would continue its "efforts for future missions".
Measuring 2 meters by 2.5 meters, the lunar lander was launched in December from the US base of Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard a SpaceX rocket. It carried several small lunar vehicles, including a Japanese miniature model developed by the Japanese space agency, in collaboration with toy manufacturer Takara Tomy.
- Sciences
- Moon
- Japan
- Space
- Accident