The Moon is the object of scientific and business desires of an increasing number of private companies in the world‘s rich countries. There is not only the SpaceX by Elon Musk, who also has the ambition to bring tourists to Mars within the next few years. Now it is Japan that aims to conquer the satellite of the Earth.
However the Japanese private company ispace must register a failure. He may in fact have crashed brutally on lunar soil lander Hakuto-R. Ispace had launched it into space but the spacecraft would have performed a “hard landing“, they communicate from Japan. Essentially ispace it still can’t boast that it has become the first private industry in the world to correctly and without problems place a lander on the Moon.
Ko spacecraft a few meters from the Moon
The Moon doesn’t seem to like the attention of Earthlings at all. And it’s turning out to be a objective difficile for individuals. Four years ago, in 2019, the failure from the mission Israeli Beresheet. It is now the baby’s Hakuto-R lander ispace to have no longer given signs of life. Yet during the approach mission to the Moon he seemed to have achieved, one after the other, all the pre-established objectives. But the last and most important – the moon landing – cannot be confirmed.
The disappointment of the organizers
After a moment of excitement, when the lander era resurfaced fromother side of the moon e they were missing at this point minutes to the moon landing, the wait for the new signal that would have sanctioned the success of the mission has begun. The lander should have touched the lunar surface at 18.40 on April 25, but 20 minutes later there was still silence. Faces increasingly tense in the mission control center in Tokyo, trying to restore communication with the vehicle, but nothing was done. “We are unable to confirm the moon landing“said the founder and CEO of ispace, Takeshi Hakamada.
Il control center of the company has received the last signs from the lander in the last stages from the descent towards the Luna. That is, when the vehicle was at a distance of 90 meters above the ground and had reduced its speed to 33 kilometers per hour. It should have been a record-breaking mission, that of ispace. Because it would have brought a vehicle built by a private company to the moon for the first time. He could also have done some Japan the fourth nation to successfully land on the moon, later United States, former Soviet Union e Chinese.
SpaceX, ispace said Luna
There was a similar attempt exactly four years ago, when on April 11, 2019 the lander Israeli Beresheetfrom the Israel Aerospace Industries. he had failed to land due to problems with the main engine and one of the inertial navigation systems. Once again, the moon landing seemed very close, but the mission control center had then lost contact with the vehicle. Launched in December 2022 with a Falcon 9 rocket from the SpaceX, Hakuto-R is the first mission of the Hakuto program of the ispacewhich takes its name from White Rabbit which according to the mythology Japanese would live on Luna. On March 21, the lander entered a circular orbit, about 100 kilometers above the lunar surface. A month later the failure of the mission, which in any case marks another step for theassault on the moon by private entrepreneurs, attracted by the business of the future: space tourism.