Japan’s mission to the moon failed

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It should have been a moment of jubilation, but after landing time for the Japanese lunar lander, there was helplessness and concern. Initially, communication with «Hakuto-R» was not possible. “We must therefore assume that we could not complete the landing on the lunar surface,” the startup said.

Communication with the “Hakuto-R” moon lander was no longer possible for the time being, “ispace” reports about half an hour after the time of the landing. It’s unclear if the “Hakuto-R” landed mostly intact or suffered serious damage.

This means that only state programs have managed to successfully land on the moon. Other private lunar missions had failed before.

The lander, 2.3 meters high and 2.6 meters wide with landing legs extended, had carried international cargo to the moon, including a small rover from the United Arab Emirates and an even smaller two-wheeled robot. It was developed by the Japanese state space agency Jaxa and the Japanese toy manufacturer Tomy.

Ispace sounded confident

Takeshi Hakamada, founder and head of “ispace”, had announced “the beginning of a new era of commercial lunar missions” leading up to the landing. But a moon landing is not trivial: the moon is littered with debris from failed missions.

These include the Israeli nonprofit Space IL’s “Beresheet” probe, which crashed onto the surface in 2019 due to a motor failure. Only the US, the Soviet Union and China have successfully landed and operated spacecraft on the moon.

Private companies really want to go to the moon

Private companies have also wanted to land on the moon and take on other space projects for years. So far, American companies such as SpaceX have been particularly involved. The competition is also now underway and there are plans for further missions to the moon by private companies before the end of this year.

As with the ISS space station, the American space agency NASA is also working increasingly closely with commercial providers on lunar projects, because this has proven to be an efficient and ultimately cost-effective way. Conversely, the business model of private companies has so far often relied on government clients.

ispace also has contracts with Nasa and Jaxa. The goal is to collect data from the moon for the development of future lunar missions, Jaxa’s project team said. A rocket from the American aerospace company SpaceX launched “Hakuto-R” in December. Hakuto means “white rabbit” in Japanese – in Japanese mythology, it lived on the moon. The “R” stands for English reboot, restart. (SDA)

Source: Blick