TOKYO, April 26 ------ A Japanese space startup's Moon lander apparently failed in the process of touching down on the celestial body, the developer said Wednesday, dashing hopes it would be the first private company in the world to reach the lunar surface successfully.
The Ispace Inc. spacecraft was launched aboard a rocket developed by U.S. firm SpaceX in December and was orbiting the Moon at an altitude of about 100 kilometers before beginning the landing sequence. "Now we lost communication. We have to assume that....we could not complete the landing on the lunar surface," Ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada told a live broadcast event.The landing, if it had gone successfully, would have also marked Japan's first-ever lunar landing. The country's space agency failed to put the ultra-small space probe Omotenashi on the Moon last year.
Under the plan, the Mission 1 Lander, about 2.3 meters in height and 2.6 meters in width, was scheduled to begin the landing sequence at around 12:40 a.m. Wednesday, aiming to land at the Atlas crater, located in the northeastern quadrant of the Moon. It was carrying seven payloads, including a small transformable robot chiefly developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and toy company Tomy Co., and a rover from the United Arab Emirates.
The Tokyo-based company launched the lander as part of the first stage of its Hakuto-R exploration program, hoping to use the technology for lunar surface data collection and cargo transportation services to the Moon.The lander took off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida in the United States in December. In order to carry less fuel, it took a longer, energy-efficient route to reach the Moon, and at one point in January was almost 1.4 million km away from Earth.
Source: abs-cbn.com
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