Japanese ispace announces failure of lunar landing

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
25 Apr 2023 22:53

The Japanese space start-up, ispace, attributes the failure to the loss of communication with the lander, Hakuto.

Staff watching the live stream of HAKUTO-R private lunar exploration program on-screen during the lunar landing event Wednesday, April 26, 2023, at Miraikan, the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, in Tokyo (AP)

After having launched, on Tuesday, a lander, Hakuto, to the moon, the Japanese space start-up, ispace, announced on Wednesday that it had lost all communication with the spacecraft and considered the lunar mission a failure.

A company official, about 25 minutes following the expected landing time, noted, "We have not confirmed communication with the lander," adding that "we had to assume that we could not complete the landing on the lunar surface."

In Japanese, Hakuto means "white rabbit" and refers to the Japanese folklore that a white rabbit lives on the Moon.

According to company officials, ispace will continue to attempt to establish communications with Hakuto. The spacecraft, which carried payloads from several countries, including a lunar rover from the United Arab Emirates, left a trail of data that was acquired by the company up until the failed landing. According to ispace CEO and founder, Takeshi Hakamada, the company will examine said data in order to understand what had happened.

Earlier this month, Hakamada had said, "What we have accomplished so far is already a great achievement, and we are already applying lessons learned from this flight to our future missions," adding that he is "looking forward to witnessing this historic day, marking the beginning of a new era of commercial lunar missions."

The lander has been in lunar orbit since last month after launching in December on one of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets, carrying lunar rovers and a miniature Japanese model of just eight centimeters jointly developed by Japan's space agency with toy manufacturer Takara Tomy.

1,000 people on the moon by 2040

Ispace claims that it "aims to extend the sphere of human life into space and create a sustainable world by providing high-frequency, low-cost transportation services to the Moon."

Hakamada described the mission as laying "the groundwork for unleashing the Moon's potential and transforming it into a robust and vibrant economic system."

As of yet, only the US, China, and Russia have succeeded in placing a robot on the Moon's surface through government-funded programs. Japan announced last year that they would jointly work with the US to send a Japanese astronaut to the Moon by the end of the decade.

The UAE is closely monitoring the Hakuto-R Mission 1 since its own Rashid rover is aboard the lander as part of its aim of expanding the nation's space program.

The UAE is not a total newcomer to the space field, as it previously sent a probe into Mars' orbit back in 2021, and if its Rashid rover reaches the Moon successfully, it will be marked as the Arab world's first Moon mission.

Ispace believes that the Moon can hold a population of 1,000 people by 2040 and expects 10,000 more to visit each year, as it is currently planning a second mission for next year entailing both a lunar landing and the deployment of its unique and own rover.