Private lunar lander close to touchdown on moon's far north
A private lunar lander from Japan is closing in on the moon, aiming for a touchdown in the unexplored far north with a mini rover.
The moon landing attempt by Tokyo-based company ispace is the latest entry in the rapidly expanding commercial lunar rush.
The encore comes two years after the company's first moonshot ended in a crash landing, giving rise to the name Resilience for its successor lander.
Resilience holds a rover with a shovel to gather lunar dirt as well as a Swedish artist's toy-size red house that will be lowered onto the moon's dusty surface.
Long the province of governments, the moon became a target of private outfits in 2019, with more flops than wins along the way.
Launched in January from Florida on a long, roundabout journey, Resilience entered lunar orbit last month. It shared a SpaceX ride with Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost, which reached the moon faster and became the first private entity to successfully land there in March.
Another US company, Intuitive Machines, arrived at the moon a few days after Firefly.
But the tall, spindly lander face-planted in a crater near the moon's south pole and was declared dead within hours.
Resilience is targeting the top of the moon, a less forbidding place than the shadowy bottom.
The ispace team chose a flat area with few boulders in Mare Frigoris or Sea of Cold, a long and narrow region full of craters and ancient lava flows that stretches across the near side's northern tier.
Once settled with power and communication flowing, the 2.3m Resilience will lower the piggybacking rover onto the lunar surface.
Made of carbon fibre-reinforced plastic with four wheels, ispace's European-built rover – named Tenacious – sports a high-definition camera to scout out the area and a shovel to scoop up some lunar dirt for Nasa.
The rover, weighing just 5kg, will stick close to the lander, going in circles at a speed of less than a couple of centimetres per second.
Besides science and tech experiments, there's an artistic touch.
The rover holds a tiny, Swedish-style red cottage with white trim and a green door, dubbed the Moonhouse by creator Mikael Genberg, for placement on the lunar surface. — AP
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New Straits Times
5 hours ago
- New Straits Times
The lesson Asean must draw from the Trump-Musk quarrel
THE public spat between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk should be viewed with detached clarity by Asean policymakers and observers. It is neither a signal of a shift in American foreign policy nor does it foreshadow a major realignment in the global tech landscape. In his second term, Trump has doubled down on his view that the US must be ruled not by institutions but by personalities. He has no patience with those who challenge his centrality. Musk, once an object of Trump's admiration, has become a rival personality. The former's influence spans multiple domains — space, artificial intelligence, electric vehicles and digital media. In the eyes of Trump, this influence must be subordinate to political loyalty. Musk's criticism of Trump, whether on policy, personality or principle, has thus drawn an inevitable response. Yet Musk is no innocent bystander. His relentless need to comment, provoke and insert himself into the political arena has increasingly eroded the neutrality that once insulated Tesla and SpaceX from partisan warfare. Since acquiring Twitter — renamed X — Musk has made the platform a personal amplifier of his views, often blurring the line between corporate strategy and personal vendetta. Just as Trump cannot resist attacking, Musk cannot help but respond. The result is a digital 'blood sport'. At a deeper level, Musk's recent provocations may be to deflect attention from his growing troubles. Tesla, long seen as the undisputed champion of electric vehicles, is now steadily losing global market share to China's BYD. Despite Musk's early-mover advantage, the Chinese EV juggernaut has surpassed Tesla in both unit sales and technological innovation, especially in markets across Asia and the Global South. This shift is not just commercial — it is geopolitical. China's industrial policy, from lithium refining to battery standardisation, has enabled firms like BYD to undercut and outpace American competitors. Tesla, by contrast, faces domestic regulatory scrutiny, investor fatigue and inconsistent leadership. Musk, who once rode the wave of futuristic optimism, is now increasingly seen as a mercurial figure whose ventures are overextended and reactive. While American media and pundits obsess about this feud, Asean must resist being distracted. The region is entering a critical decade in which its ability to lead on green transition, artificial intelligence governance and maritime security will define its global role. Whether Musk and Trump call each other names or trade blows on social media is irrelevant to the Asean Outlook on the Indo-Pacific, or to the implementation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. Moreover, if there is a lesson to draw from this spectacle, it is the danger of personalising power. Asean's strength has always rested in its ability to temper egos through consensus and consultation. That is not a flaw but a survival mechanism. The bloc should be wary of importing political styles rooted in personality cults, where institutions are hollowed out in favour of personal charisma and performative leadership. Musk and Trump are both creatures of the same American pathology: the belief that individual willpower, when fused with wealth or fame, is enough to override complex systems. But Asean is different. The region's success depends not on dominant personalities but on the patient weaving of trust, rules and interdependence. Ultimately, Asean must tune out the noise. There are far more pressing issues to confront — from resolving the Myanmar crisis and addressing climate-induced migration, to strengthening regional supply chains and ensuring cybersecurity. The Musk-Trump bust-up may dominate headlines in Washington, but it is only a sideshow to the real geopolitical currents shaping Asia's future.
The Star
9 hours ago
- The Star
Ispace aborts Moon mission
Space setback: Hakamada (centre) waiting with members of his team for news of the expected landing on the Moon by the company's Resilience craft, in Tokyo. — AFP The country's hopes of achieving its first soft touchdown on the Moon by a private company were dashed when the mission was aborted after an assumed crash-landing, the startup said. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to make history as only the third private firm – and the first outside the United States – to achieve a controlled arrival on the lunar surface. But 'based on the currently available data ... it is currently assumed that the lander likely performed a hard landing', the startup said yesterday. 'It is unlikely that communication with the lander will be restored' so 'it has been decided to conclude the mission', ispace said in a statement. The failure comes two years after a prior mission ended in a crash. The company's unmanned Resilience spacecraft began its daunting final descent and 'successfully fired its main engine as planned to begin deceleration', ispace said. Mission control confirmed that the lander's positioning was 'nearly vertical' – but contact was then lost, with the mood on a livestream from mission control turning sombre. Technical problems meant 'the lander was unable to decelerate sufficiently to reach the required speed for the planned lunar landing', ispace said. To date, only five nations have achieved soft lunar landings: the Soviet Union, the United States, China, India and most recently Japan. Now, private companies are joining the race, promising cheaper and more frequent access to space. On board the Resilience lander were several high-profile payloads. They included Tenacious, a Luxembourg-built micro rover; a water electrolyser to split molecules into hydrogen and oxygen; a food production experiment; and a deep-space radiation probe. The rover also carried 'Moonhouse' – a small model home designed by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg. 'I take the fact that the second attempt failed to land seriously,' chief executive officer Takeshi Hakamada told reporters. 'But the most important thing is to use this result' for future missions, he said, describing a 'strong will to move on, although we have to carefully analyse what happened'. Last year, Houston-based Intuitive Machines became the first private enterprise to reach the Moon. Though its uncrewed lander touched down at an awkward angle, it still managed to complete tests and transmit photos. Then in March this year, Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost – launched on the same SpaceX rocket as ispace's Resilience – aced its lunar landing attempt. The mood ahead of yesterday's attempt had been celebratory, with a watch party also held by ispace's US branch in Washington. After contact was lost, announcers on an ispace livestream signed off with the message: 'Never quit the lunar quest.' The mission had also aimed to collect two lunar soil samples and sell them to Nasa for US$5,000 (RM21,150). Though the samples would remain on the Moon, the symbolic transaction is meant to strengthen the US stance that commercial activity – though not sovereign claims – should be allowed on celestial bodies. — AFP
The Star
9 hours ago
- The Star
This is the phishing scam that gets an identity theft expert in the US 'really, very angry'
Digital thieves are nothing if not persistent and innovative. They keep finding new ways to try to part you from your money. Phishing – where thieves pose as trusted entities or send legitimate looking emails or messages to trick you into giving them access to your accounts – is a widespread method. And it is constantly evolving. 'We've seen phishing go through the roof,' said Eva Velasquez, the CEO of the Identity Theft Resource Center, a San Diego-based national nonprofit. But knowledge is power. So here are three emerging phishing threats to look out for, according to Internet safety experts. All three threats target key parts of people's digital lives: email attachments that lead to fake login pages, multi-factor authentication trickery and deceptive calendar invites. Spending a few minutes reading these pointers could help you avoid getting your ID or money stolen and save you countless hours of dealing with the fallout. HTML attachments that open fake login pages Imagine a busy professional who is in email action mode. In the past 30 minutes on a Saturday morning, he has filled out emailed liability waivers for his seven children's summer camps, filed an expense report for work, answered a secure portal message from the veterinarian about his sick puppy's prescription, skimmed 182 email subject lines and paid five bills from his email inbox, including a car insurance premium and his beloved cheese-of-the-month club. Amid this flurry of inbound emails, ads, invoices and secure messages, he is working on autopilot: opening messages, skimming, clicking and signing in. What a perfect opportunity. Scammers are taking advantage of user distraction – and their trust – by sending emails with HTM or HTML attachments. When clicked, those open a browser file that looks like secure, familiar login page. These pages might look like secure invoice viewers, file-sharing services like DocuSign or Dropbox, or sign-in pages to platforms including Microsoft 365. 'Once the user enters their credentials, they are sent surreptitiously to the attacker's server,' said Vlad Cristescu, the head of cybersecurity with ZeroBounce, a Florida company that helps businesses lower their rate of bounced marketing emails. Why this method is especially insidious: 'There isn't a clickable link in the email, so standard email security filters (which scan for malicious URLs or attachments like PDFs and ZIPs) may not catch it,' Cristescu added. To prevent this, he added, companies should 'restrict HTML attachments unless essential, and users should treat unfamiliar HTML files the same way they'd treat a suspicious link – don't open it unless you're absolutely sure of the sender.' If you do receive incoming communication with an HTML link or attachment, don't engage, said Velasquez, with the ITRC. 'Don't click on links, people. That's the big, overarching message,' she said. Instead, go to the source: call the phone number on the back of your credit card, visit the bank in person. Multifactor authentication tricks If you are one of the many people who uses multifactor authentication, take note. Multifactor authentication is still very helpful and should be used. But Cristescu flagged one way that scammers are taking this tool – which is designed to make people's online accounts more secure – and using it to slither in. As a refresher, multifactor authentication is an added layer of protection that prevents data thieves from logging into your accounts if they have your username and password. It helps ensure that you're the one who typed in your password when you log in, and not some scammer in the Philippines or Poughkeepsie. To use multifactor authentication, you typically download an app, such as Google Authenticator or Microsoft Authenticator. You register your sensitive online accounts, such as Facebook, bank or email, with that app. Then, every time you log into a registered website, the authenticator app generates a new, random code that you enter after your password as a second layer of verification. With the rise of this protection, a new threat has emerged: Scammers who have your username and password can send log-in requests to your authenticator app. Next, the scammer can pose as an IT expert from your workplace and ask you to approve the log-in request. If you fall for it, then boom – the scammer is in. This technique 'exploits a user's frustration and trust in IT. If you're receiving multiple (authenticator) prompts you didn't initiate, that's not a glitch – it's an attack,' Cristescu said. He recommends pausing, never approving these unexpected requests and flagging the interaction with IT. Velasquez added that if you get an authenticator notification and you didn't just log in yourself, 'That is a huge red flag. Stop and address it. Don't ignore it.' Anytime you interact with IT, be sure you're the one initiating that contact, she added. If someone from IT calls or emails you, disconnect and reach back out using a trusted method, such as the same phone number you always dial. Fake calendar invites A third technique data thieves are using is calendar invites. 'I just get really very angry about this one,' Velasquez said. 'It is super hard to detect.' Here's what to look out for. If you use an online calendar like Google calendar or the native iPhone calendar app, you might receive an invitation to an event you didn't see coming. Sometimes these meetings are legitimate. Sometimes, they are not. Scammers 'are now sending meeting requests with malicious links embedded in the invite or 'join' button. These invitations sync directly into calendars and often go unquestioned,' according to ZeroBounce. Scammers use calendar invites because they have 'built-in credibility – they're not usually scrutinised like emails,' Cristescu said. Look for meeting requests from unknown senders and vague event names like 'Sync' or 'Project Review,' he added. In some jobs or roles, meetings routinely get added to calendars by other people –clients, prospects, coworkers, bosses, peers. 'I have gotten these repeatedly,' said Velasquez, with the ITRC. 'Depending on your lifestyle and your job and how you work, these are going to be particularly challenging. They are real calendar invites. The problem is they have malicious software embedded in them – so when you click on portions of them, 'Click to join,' it's like opening an attachment (or) clicking on a suspicious link. It's the same principle.' Cristescu, with ZeroBounce, shared this tip: 'Treat those just like a phishing email. Disable auto-accept where possible and review every invite manually before clicking anything.' Never stop questioning what lands in your inbox or calendar, Cristescu added. 'Always verify the sender's email address, ensure that any link you click matches the legitimate domain, and look out for subtle red flags like spelling errors or unusual formatting.' A big picture pointer 'All three of these (scams) are so common that it has probably happened to every single person reading the article – at least one of them. That's how ubiquitous these are,' Velasquez said. She shared this broader thought: It's less important to know how to respond to each scenario and more important to pause, be skeptical, double check. It's important to be ever more sceptical, because AI makes it easier and easier for thieves to create convincing ruses, Cristescu and Velasquez both said. AI 'really helps with making these phishing offers look and sound so much more legitimate,' Velasquez said. 'And with the amount of data that is out there from public sources and from data breaches, it's very easy to see what relationships people have.' Where you bank, where you do business – that is all fodder for someone to create a copycat page designed to trick you into logging in. Adopt an 'investigator mindset,' Velasquez said. Use this helpful reminder: the acronym STAR, which stands for Stop. Think. Ask questions or ask for help. Reassess. – The San Diego Union-Tribune/Tribune News Service
