Japan's ispace should have been celebrating now, but instead, the company has investigated the whereabouts of its recently lost Lunar lander spacecraft that is now believed to have crash landed. This new information comes from the company's earlier investigation after losing communications and tracking of its Hakuto-R Mission 1.
This was supposedly the first commercial spacecraft to land on the Moon, with ispace spending a significant amount of time developing its technology, alongside the UAE's Moon rover in the lander.
Japan's ispace Hakuto-R: Moon Lander Crash Landed Says Evidence
Japan's lunar exploration mission, the ispace Hakuto-R Mission 1 lander, is believed to have crash-landed on the Moon as per ABC News. Evidence suggests that it crashed after the spacecraft lost communications with ground control on Tuesday, Apr. 25, 12:40 PM ET, raising concerns about the success of the mission.
The ispace Hakuto-R Mission 1, developed by the Japanese space company ispace, was launched on December 2022, boarding the SpaceX Falcon for its trip to orbit. It aims to conduct a series of lunar exploration activities, including collecting data and images from the lunar surface.
The mission carried scientific instruments and UAE's Rashid rover to further advance knowledge of the Moon. It also carried the hopes of its developers to be the first commercial lander to touch down on the lunar surface, a supposed world's first.
Hakuto-R M1 Mission: Lunar Venture Gone Wrong?
According to the New York Times, ispace Chief Executive Takeshi Hamada claims he is proud of the company's mission and lander despite this failed attempt. He further said that they were able to collect massive data behind the first mission of its Moon lander and would apply their information from this mission to its next two ventures.
Moon Missions from Humans
Going to the Moon may seem like an easy feat as humans have already ventured toward the lunar surface with successful landings in the past.
However, this is not entirely the case, as NASA conducted an unmanned test flight of its SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft to the Moon and back, now under extensive analysis for its future use.
The ispace Hakuto-R Mission 1 lander was one of several international lunar missions currently underway, including NASA's Artemis program, China's Chang'e missions, and other programs which aim to explore and understand the Moon's unique features and potential for human exploration.
The loss of communication with the iSpace Hakuto-R Mission 1 shows the challenges of space exploration and serves as a testament to the complexities involved in sending spacecraft to distant celestial bodies.
Despite ispace releasing initial findings on its investigations, the company will still try to locate where its spacecraft landed, further assessing what happened to the lander. As the investigation continues, the world anticipates what ispace has to say about what happened to its flight. It looks to its future missions that will hopefully have a successful landing after learning from this incident.
Related Article: Japanese Spacecraft Suddenly Lost in Moon Landing Attempt, Flight Controllers Start Investigation
