Key Takeaways
- Japan’s ispace lunar landing mission failed after losing communication with the lander during descent.
- The mission’s failure marks the second attempt by ispace to land on the Moon, following a crash in 2023.
- Ispace’s lunar landing mission aimed to make a soft landing at a flat region near Mare Frigoris, but communication was lost during descent.
Tokyo: Tokyo-based space startup ispace has officially confirmed the failure of its lunar landing mission, after losing communication with its lander during descent in the early hours of Friday.
Ispace held a press conference shortly after 9:00 a.m. Japan time to announce the mission’s conclusion. The company determined that communication recovery with the lander was no longer feasible, marking the end of the mission.
The lander, launched in January from Florida, successfully entered lunar orbit and began its descent from an altitude of 100 kilometers at around 3:00 a.m. on Friday.
It was scheduled to make a soft landing at 4:17 a.m. on a flat region near Mare Frigoris, also known as the “Sea of Cold” in the Moon’s northern hemisphere.
However, by 4:30 a.m., the company reported it had not established communication with the lander and began investigating the situation. The team concluded that the mission had not succeeded in achieving a soft landing.
The second attempt followed the company’s failure in 2023, when a misjudgment in altitude led to a crash.
