Japanese Spacecraft Fails to Land on Moon
Takeshi Hakamada, CEO of Japanese space company ispace, announced that the landing mission of the Hakuto-R spacecraft-also known as Resilience-has ended in failure, according too a report by webangah News Agency.
“We’ve concluded that re-establishing interaction with the lander is unlikely,and completing the mission appears unfeasible,” Hakamada stated during a press conference. “Thus, we can confirm the landing was unsuccessful.”
The ispace CEO emphasized that efforts are now focused on analyzing received data to determine the cause of the failure. During a live broadcast of the landing attempt, telemetry showed the spacecraft’s altitude abruptly dropping to zero approximately 90 seconds before its scheduled touchdown time.
This marks ispace’s second failed lunar landing attempt. the first mission in April 2023 also ended unsuccessfully when contact was lost after an unexpected acceleration in the final moments before landing.
The 2.3-meter-tall Hakuto-R spacecraft was launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from U.S.-based SpaceX on January 15 this year.
