Tokyo, we have a problem: attempt to land on the Moon by the Hakuto module of ispace fails

the japanese company ispace lost contact with its lunar lander a few minutes before it was supposed to land on the surface, which probably indicates that it crashed. A successful landing would have made the Tokyo-based company the first private company to complete a moon landing.

The seven-foot lander called Hakutowhich means white rabbit in Japanese, descended the last 33 feet on the lunar surface when communications ceased.

In accordance with tech spot, mission researchers waited minutes for a response, but received none. ispace CEO and founder Takeshi Hakamada later admitted that the spacecraft probably crashed.

The lander lifted off in December on a SpaceX rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, before entering lunar orbit on March 21. It was supposed to make contact with the surface around 12:40 p.m. ET. CTO Ryo Ujie said the hard part was slowing Hakuto down to the correct speed relative to the Moon’s gravity.

not everything is negative

The spaceship had on board a rover from the United Arab Emirates, a Japanese robot and other elements that would have carried out experiments on the surface of the Moon.

Although Hakuto did not complete all of his goals, your achievements during the voyage will provide valuable data for the second spacecraft ispace is already building. Eventually, the company wants to operate a business to provide transportation to the Moon for other organizations.

In addition to the Japanese efforts, China and the United States are planning nuclear-powered lunar bases, Lockheed Martin and Nokia want to establish wireless communication networks on the Moon, and a startup company intends to send a backup data center.