Japan Spacecraft Believed to Have Crashed on Moon During Landing
Tokyo-based Ispace Inc. said it lost contact with a lander bound for the moon and that the craft, which didn't have anyone on board, likely crashed, a big setback for the company's efforts in space transportation and Japan's push into the cosmos more broadly.
Ispace's Hakuto-R Mission 1 lander was scheduled to touch down early Wednesday morning Japan time, in what would have been among the very first commercial space attempts to place a lander on the moon intact. But communication was lost shortly after engineers confirmed the lander was in a vertical position on the final approach.
“It has been determined that there is a high probability that the lander eventually made a hard landing on the moon's surface,” Ispace said in a statement. Ispace's shares nose dived in off-market trading, plunging 20%.
Facing the media later on Wednesday morning, Ispace executives were putting on a brave face, painting the failed landing as something of a victory.
“While the lander wasn't able to reach the final step, we're the first private company to collect data from an attempted lunar landing,” Chief Executive Officer Takeshi Hakamada said. “Data that will greatly help us in our preparations for Missions 2 and 3.”
High Emotions
Hakamada said in an earlier statement that Ispace would continue to work on future missions, despite the mishap. “What's important is to feed this knowledge and learning back to Mission 2 and beyond so that we can make the most of this experience,” he said.
Chief Technology Officer Ryo Ujiie was more emotional. Explaining to reporters in detail what likely happened to the lander based on telemetry and simulations, he started to cry. Reading all the headlines after the live-streaming event, he said, it dawned on him just
Read more on tech.hindustantimes.com
