Array
Japanese start-up ispace conceded Wednesday its ambitious attempt to become the first company to land on the Moon had ended in failure, but pledged to move ahead with new missions.
The unmanned Hakuto-R Mission 1 lander had been scheduled to arrive on the Moon’s surface overnight, but communications were lost during its descent and had still not been re-established 25 minutes after the scheduled landing.
“It has been determined that there is a high probability that the lander eventually made a hard landing on the Moon’s surface,” ispace said later in a statement.
The company said its engineers were working to establish why the landing had failed.
“Although we do not expect to complete the lunar landing at this time, we believe that we have fully accomplished the significance of this mission, having acquired a great deal of data and experience,” ispace CEO and founder Takeshi Hakamada said.
“What is important is to feed this knowledge and learning back to Mission 2 and beyond,” he added.
He said the firm is currently developing two further attempts to land on the lunar surface and the setback would not change that.
Still, the apparent crash marks a frustrating end to a mission that began with the lander’s launch last December aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
