The first private moon landing in history will have to wait. The Japanese mission Hakuto-R has been about to achieve it.
the probe Hakuto-Rfrom the Japanese space company ispacesupposedly It has crashed in his attempt to land on the moon. I was going to be the first moon landing by a private company of history.
Until now, only state companies from countries like the United States or China have put a ship or a robot on the Moon.
Last year it was tried by a private Israeli company, which also crashed on landing. It seemed that this time, the Hakuto-R probe from the Japanese company ispace, was in a position to do so. Just a few minutes before, she had sent the two photos that you can see in this news, captured only 100 kilometers of the lunar surface:
But something has happened at the moment of landing. In the press release with the statement, ispace explains that they lost communication with the ship just a few seconds before landing.
This usually means that the probe has crashed into the ground. The engineers are still trying to establish communication, but the press release itself acknowledges that it is most likely that Hakuto-R has crashed.
Here you can see the live streaming of the landing, and the ispace community at the end, with obvious disappointment on their faces, and some contained tears:
ispace reaffirms in the video its intention not to give up. already have one scheduled mission 2 in 2024, and the mission 3 in 2025.
The data sent by telemetry is going to be very valuable for “reinforce the landing system“, in future missions.
The failures of the private missions From Israel and Japan to the Moon They show that it is not easy to jump into space. And it reinforces the merit of NASA in missions such as Perseverance, or those of the European Space Agency, with the successful launch of the Juice spacecraft towards the moons of Jupiter.
It cannot be called private because it is financed by the government of Arab Emiratesbut yesterday the Arab probe Esperanza sent the clearest and most spectacular image of the moon Deimos, as it passes through Mars.
He first moon landing by a private company in the Moon has been a failure crashing the Hakuto-R probe. But that shouldn’t discourage ispace. Nothing is easy in space, and only those who persevere succeed. Cheer up!