Japanese Company ispace Suspects Spacecraft Crash Landed on Lunar Surface During Moon Landing Mission

Japanese company ispace attempted a commercial landing on the lunar surface that ended in radio silence of the spacecraft
The HAKUTO-R mission launched with the help of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket in December 2022
The spacecraft joins the ranks of other landers, such as Israel's Beresheet and India's Vikram that failed similar attempts in 2019

Japanese company ispace attempted to land a spacecraft on the lunar surface in a moon landing program that ended in radio silence that they suspect was caused by a crash landing of the vessel.

The mission marks the first attempt at a commercial landing on the surface of Earth's satellite. However, mission controllers later could not establish communications with the spacecraft after the scheduled landing.

Japanese Company's Failed Moon Landing Mission

The company designed the mission, dubbed HAKUTO-R, and launched the spacecraft onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in December last year. However, it suffered a failed landing on Apr. 25, resulting in the vessel becoming the latest to crash into the lunar surface, as per Scientific American.

In a statement during a live broadcast of the landing attempt, ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada said they were assuming they would not be able to complete the landing on the moon's surface.

Currently, it is not yet clear exactly what went wrong with the HAKUTO-R mission's automated landing process. The company's lander is known as Mission (M1) and was set to land in Atlas Crater located in the Mare Frigoris region on the moon's northern hemisphere.

Hakamada argued that the team in charge of the spacecraft maintained communications until the final moments when it went radio silent. He added that they were able to acquire flight data that they will use to increase the chances of success of future missions.

Engineers with ispace are now investigating the incident and are trying to determine the cause of the crash. The 22-pound rover in the mission, dubbed Rashid, was manufactured by Dubai's Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center, according to Tech Times.

Rashid Rover's Crash Landing

The Japanese company went with an unusual approach for its lunar landing mission compared to others before it. It sought to land the spacecraft on the moon as a for-profit enterprise rather than being managed by a single country.

ispace was among several businesses competing for the $20 million prize in the Google Lunar XPrize. The competition required the landing of a robotic rover on the moon's surface and having it travel a few thousand feet and successfully send data back to Earth.

The failed mission comes as two commercial landers built by American companies and given funding by NASA are set to launch and travel to the moon in the next few months. The American space agency established its Commercial Lunar Payload Service Program (CLPS) in 2018.

It was done due to rides on private spacecraft for sending instruments and equipment to the moon, which were estimated to be cheaper than building its own crafts. Furthermore, NASA wants to influence the creation of a new commercial industry around the moon, the costs of which would most likely go down if there is competition between lunar companies, said the New York Times.