What could have been the first private moon landing ended in failure after Japanese startup ispace lost contact with its lunar lander, as previously reported by Washington Post. As the Hakuto-R Mission 1 lander approaches the lunar surface, engineers discover that they can no longer communicate with the spacecraft.
“At the moment, we have not confirmed communications from the probe,” ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada said during a live broadcast of the mission. “So we have to assume we couldn’t complete the landing.”
Last December, ispace launched the Hakuto-R lander from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on top of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. The spacecraft embarked on a three-month journey to reach lunar orbit before landing on the lunar surface on Tuesday. Things seemed to be going as planned until the engineers received no response from the spacecraft after its expected touchdown at 12:40 p.m. ET.
“Our engineers and mission operations specialists at our Mission Control Center (MCC) are currently working to confirm the lander’s current status,” ispace said following the live broadcast. “More information about the probe’s status will be announced as it becomes available.”