The device may have crashed.
The spacecraft Hakuto-R of the Japanese company ispace reached the Moon, but lost contact with the Mission Control Center (MCC) after landing. It is assumed that its speed at the last stage was too high, because of which the device could crash.
Reportedly, telemetry was received by the MCC until the last moment before landing. The company promised to publish the results when they are. And the founder of the company, Takeshi Khakamada, suggested that the device could not land on the Earth’s satellite.
“ We confirmed that we were able to establish contact with the device before the final stage of landing, but now we have lost contact. We have to assume that we were unable to land on the lunar surface ,” he said during the broadcast.
The Japanese lunar module Hakuto-R landed on the moon
“ At the moment, we cannot confirm a successful landing on the lunar surface ,” said the head of the company.
The Hakuto-R itself was launched to the Moon on December 11, 2022 using a Falcon 9 rocket. It was assumed that this mission would be the first ever private project of a lunar vehicle. The Hakuto-R lander weighs 1 ton and was supposed to land in the Atlas crater on the visible side of the moon. His task was to study the surface.
Together with the lander, the Rashid lunar rover, created in the United Arab Emirates, as well as a mini-robot developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) together with the Tomy toy company, were supposed to get to the moon.
