‘High probability’ spacecraft crashed on the Moon, says Japanese company

A Japanese company’s spacecraft apparently crashed while attempting to land on the moon on Wednesday, losing contact moments before landing and sending flight controllers scrambling to find out what happened.

More than six hours after the communication ceased, the Tokyo company ispace finally confirmed what everyone suspected, saying that there was “a high probability” that the lander had crashed into the moon.

It was a disappointing setback for ispace, which after a 4 1/2 month mission had come close to doing what only three countries have ever done: successfully land a spacecraft on the moon.

Takeshi Hakamada, founder and CEO of ispace, remained hopeful even after contact was lost as the lander descended the last 33 feet (10 meters). Flight controllers stared at their screens in Tokyo as the minutes ticked by with only the silence of the moon.

A grim-faced team surrounded Hakamada as he announced that the landing was likely to have failed.

The official word finally came in a statement: “It has been determined that there is a high probability that the lander has finally made a forced landing on the surface of the moon.”

If all had gone well, ispace would have been the first private company to fly a moon landing. Hakamada vowed to try again, saying a second moon launch is already in the works for next year.

Only three governments have successfully landed on the moon: Russia, the United States, and China. An Israeli non-profit organization attempted to land on the moon in 2019, but his spaceship was destroyed on impact.

“If space is hard, landing is harder,” Laurie Leshin, director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, tweeted. “I know from personal experience how horrible that feels.”

Leshin worked on NASA’s Mars Polar lander that crashed on the red planet in 1999.

The 7-foot (2.3-meter) Japanese lander was carrying a mini lunar rover for the United Arab Emirates and a toy robot from Japan designed to roll around in lunar dust for about 10 days. This is how everything else in the mission was supposed to last.

Named Hakuto, Japanese for white rabbit, the spacecraft had been pointed at Atlas crater in the northeastern section of the moon’s near side, more than 50 miles (87 kilometers) wide and just over 1 mile (2 kilometers) deep.

It took a long, indirect route to the moon by following its december take off, transmitting photos of Earth along the way. The lander entered lunar orbit on March 21.

Flight controllers were able to determine that the lander was upright as it used its thrusters to slow down during final approach Wednesday. Engineers monitoring the fuel gauge noticed that as the tank emptied, the lander increased speed as it descended and then communication was lost, according to ispace. That’s what leads them to believe the lander crashed.

Founded in 2010, ispace hopes to start making a profit as a one-way taxi service to the moon for other companies and organizations. The company has already raised $300 million to cover the first three missions, according to Hakamada.

“We will keep going, we will never give up the lunar search,” he said.

For this test flight, the two main experiments were sponsored by the government: the UAE’s 22-pound (10-kilogram) Rashid rover, named after the Dubai royal family, and the orange-sized sphere of the Japanese Space Agency. designed to transform into a wheeled robot on the moon. The United Arab Emirates sought to extend its presence to the moon, already in orbit around the Earth with a astronaut aboard the International Space Stationand in orbit around Mars.

The moon is suddenly hot again, with numerous countries and private companies clamoring to jump on the moon bandwagon. China has successfully landed three spacecraft on the moon since 2013, and the US, China, India, and South Korea all have satellites currently orbiting the moon.

NASA’s first test flight in its new Moonshot program, Artemis, arrived at the moon and back at the end of last year, paving the way for four astronauts to follow them late next year and another two to land on the moon a year later. Pittsburgh’s Astrobotics Technology and Houston’s Intuitive Machines have lunar landers waiting in the wings, ready to launch later this year at NASA’s behest.

Hakuto and the Israeli spacecraft called the Beresheet were finalists in the Google Lunar X Prize competition that required a successful landing on the moon by 2018. The $20 million grand prize was not claimed.

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