Moon lander ‘likely to have crashed’, says Japan’s ispace | World News
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Japan’s private space company ispace has said its latest uncrewed moon lander has probably crashed on to the surface, two years after another unsuccessful touchdown attempt.
The Tokyo-based company declared the mission a failure on Friday, several hours after communication was lost with the lander, named Resilience.
It follows its failed inaugural mission in 2023. CEO and founder Takeshi Hakamada issued an apology at a news conference.
“This is the second time that we were not able to land. So we really have to take it very seriously,” he told reporters.
But he stressed that the company would press ahead with more lunar missions.
On Wednesday, ispace released footage from the Resilience lander circling the moon, ahead of Thursday’s planned landing.
Initial analysis of the mission failure suggests the laser system for measuring the altitude did not work as planned, and the lander descended too fast, officials said.
“Based on these circumstances, it is currently assumed that the lander likely performed a hard landing on the…
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