Japanese startup ispace Inc. said Friday that a lunar probe
developed by the company has failed in a moon landing again,
Azernews reports, citing Nippon.
The vehicle was scheduled to land on the moon shortly past 4
a.m. Friday Japan time, but communication with the lander was
disrupted immediately before the planned landing, ispace said.
“It is currently assumed that the lander likely performed a hard
landing on the lunar surface,” it said in a statement.
The second lunar lander of ispace was launched on Jan. 15 on the
Falcon 9 rocket of U.S. spacecraft manufacturer SpaceX. The
Japanese company aimed to be the first private Asian firm to
succeed in lunar landing. The firm’s first lunar lander failed in
its landing attempt after it was launched in December 2022.
According to ispace, the second lander started to slow down by
engaging reverse thrust for landing, but it could not reduce speed
sufficiently due to a delay in measuring the distance to the moon
surface.
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AloJapan.com