The unmanned moon mission of the Japanese start-up company Ispace has apparently failed. The lunar lander “Hakuto-R” probably crashed during a “hard landing” on the lunar surface, said Ispace founder Takeshi Hakamada today.
Prior to this, radio contact with the probe had broken off. The aim of the mission was to be the first private company to put a probe on the moon. So far, only the US, Russia and China have managed to put robots on the moon.
As the company announced almost half an hour after the planned landing, radio contact with its moon lander broke off. “We must therefore assume that we could not complete the landing on the lunar surface,” said Ispace founder Takeshi Hakamada.
From the start, success was not certain
“Hakuto-R” is a two by 2.50 meter probe. From the outset, however, the success of the mission was by no means certain. In April 2019, the Israeli non-profit organization SpaceIL had already failed with a similar attempt. Their probe crashed on the surface of the Earth’s satellite, some 400,000 kilometers away.
