A private lunar lander from Japan crashed while attempting a touchdown Friday, the latest casualty in the commercial rush to the moon, the AP reports. The Tokyo-based company ispace declared the mission a failure several hours after communication was lost with the lander. Flight controllers scrambled to gain contact, but were met with only silence and said they were concluding the mission. Communications ceased less than two minutes before the spacecraft's scheduled landing on the moon with a mini rover. Until then, the descent from lunar orbit seemed to be going well.
CEO and founder Takeshi Hakamada apologized to everyone who contributed to the mission, the second lunar strikeout for ispace. Two years ago, the company's first moonshot ended in a crash landing, giving rise to the name "Resilience" for its successor lander. Resilience carried a rover with a shovel to gather lunar dirt as well as a Swedish artist's toy-size red house for placement on the moon's dusty surface. Company officials said it was too soon to know whether the same problem doomed both missions.
"This is the second time that we were not able to land. So we really have to take it very seriously," Hakamada told reporters. He stressed that the company would press ahead with more lunar missions. A preliminary analysis indicates the laser system for measuring the altitude did not work as planned, and the lander descended too fast, officials said. "Based on these circumstances, it is currently assumed that the lander likely performed a hard landing on the lunar surface," the company said in a written statement.
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