Japan’s Lunar Dreams Dashed: Tokyo startup’s moon rover fails moments before touchdown

In a gut-wrenching moment for Japan, the country’s first commercialised mission to the Moon, after its startup iSpace’s lunar rover had some communication issues just moments before touchdown. 

Since then, iSpace has confirmed that they believe Hakuto-R Mission 1 lander may have crashed onto the moon. 

Last December, iSpace launched its Hakuto-R lander atop SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The lander set off on a three-month trek to enter lunar orbit before touching down on the Moon’s surface on Tuesday. Everything appeared to be going according to plan until engineers received no reaction from the spacecraft after its projected 12:40 PM ET impact.

Also read: Space Travel: Japanese space startup tries to be the first commercial space org to land on the Moon

“Our engineers and mission operations specialists in our MCC [mission control centre] are currently working to confirm the current status of the lander,” iSpace said after the webcast ended. “Further information on the status of the lander will be announced as soon as it becomes available.”

With the launch of the long-delayed Smart Lander for Investigating Moon later this year, the government will make another effort to land a spacecraft on the Moon intact.

The company speculated that when the lander approached the moon, its altitude-measuring equipment may have overestimated the distance to the surface.

“It apparently went into freefall towards the surface as it was running out of fuel to fire up its thrusters,” said Ryo Ujiie, the chief technical officer, at a news conference on Wednesday.

A commercial company has yet to successfully arrive on the moon. Only the United States, the former Soviet Union, and China have soft-landed spacecraft on the moon, with recent efforts by India and a private Israeli business all failing.

While Japan’s senior government spokesperson, Hirokazu Matsuno, expressed regret that the mission did not succeed, he encouraged iSpace to “keep trying” since its efforts were critical to the establishment of a domestic space sector.

The lander accomplished eight of ten mission goals in orbit, providing crucial data for the next landing attempt in 2024, according to iSpace CEO Takeshi Hakamada.

The 2.3-metre-tall M1 began its landing phase approximately an hour before the intended landing, progressively narrowing its orbit around the moon from 62 miles (100 km) above the surface to around 15 miles, moving at about 3,700 mph.

Slowing the lander to the correct speed against the moon’s gravitational pull is like to pressing the brakes of a bicycle just at the edge of a ski-jumping hill, according to Ujiie.

The spacecraft was aimed for a landing location on the moon’s northern hemisphere’s Mare Frigoris, where it would have deployed a two-wheeled, baseball-sized rover created by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Tomy, and Sony. It also planned to deploy Rashid, a four-wheeled rover from the United Arab Emirates.

Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News,
India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.