Another commercial startup just flubbed a moon landing

Digital Trends

5 days ago

Following its failed attempt to achieve a successful landing on the moon in 2023, there were high hopes that Japanese startup ispace would succeed on its second attempt early on Friday local time. But it wasn't to be.
Similar to its first attempt two years ago when it attempted to become the first commercial company to achieve a fully successful soft landing on the moon, the Tokyo-based mission team lost contact with its Resilience lander in the final stages before touchdown on the lunar surface.
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In a statement on the Hakuto-R Mission 2 delivered on Friday Tokyo time, ispace explained that following the initiation of Resilience's landing sequence, mission controllers were unable to establish communications with the vehicle.
It said that as of 8 a.m. local time on June 6, the team had determined that it is 'unlikely that communication with the lander will be restored' and 'therefore it has been decided to conclude the mission.'
Elaborating on the lander's final moments, ispace said that commands to execute the landing sequence were transmitted at 3:13 a.m. Tokyo time.
'The Resilience lander then began the descent phase. The lander descended from an altitude of approximately 100 km to approximately 20 km, and then successfully fired its main engine as planned to begin deceleration. While the lander's attitude was confirmed to be nearly vertical, telemetry was lost thereafter, and no data indicating a successful landing was received, even after the scheduled landing time had passed.'
It added that the laser rangefinder used to measure the distance to the lunar surface experienced delays in obtaining valid measurement values. 'As a result, the lander was unable to decelerate sufficiently to reach the required speed for the planned lunar landing. Based on these circumstances, it is currently assumed that the lander likely performed a hard landing on the lunar surface.'
It said that after communication was lost with Resilience, a command was sent to reboot the it, but a connection could not be established.
'Given that there is currently no prospect of a successful lunar landing, our top priority is to swiftly analyze the telemetry data we have obtained thus far and work diligently to identify the cause,' said Takeshi Hakamada, founder and CEO of ispace.
The company said it's now seeking to convince its backers that it can work through the issue and go again.
The failure of ispace's second lunar landing attempt is yet another reminder of the challenges faced by commercial lunar missions, many of which have failed to make a successful soft landing on the moon.
A breakthrough came earlier this year, however, when Texas-based Firefly Aerospace became the first commercial firm to achieve a fully successful soft landing, with its Blue Ghost Mission 1 lander. Blue Ghost operated for a couple of weeks, supporting various science experiments before finally losing power.
With space technology advancing and launch costs reducing, private firms are increasingly interested in reaching the moon, primarily to explore opportunities for mining resources.