The Japanese start-up company, iSpace, announced the failure of its attempt to land the first spacecraft of a private company on the surface of the moon, Tuesday, after losing contact with the “Hakto-R Mission 1” (M1), prompting the company to conclude that the vehicle most likely hit the surface of the moon.
The company said in a statement that data it received in the moments leading up to the planned landing showed a steady increase in the vehicle’s speed, leading engineers at the Tokyo Mission Control Center to determine that a successful lunar landing was “unachievable”, reports Al-Rai daily quoting Reuters.
“We lost communication, so we have to assume that we will not be able to complete the landing on the moon,” CEO Takeshi Hakamada said in a live broadcast shortly after the spacecraft lost contact.
The success of the mission would have represented a much-needed shift for Japan after setbacks in the past period in the field of space technology in light of its efforts to build a domestic industry and send Japanese astronauts to the moon by the end of this decade. But landing on the moon is a very ambitious goal for a private company.
Only the United States, the former Soviet Union and China have been able to land spaceships safely on the moon, while attempts in the past few years by India and a private Israeli company have failed miserably.
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