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Japan’s landmark moon mission ends in disappointment after contact is lost following a likely ‘hard landing’

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Japan’s landmark moon mission ends in disappointment after contact is lost following a likely ‘hard landing’​

BYNICHOLAS TAKAHASHI, MIN JEONG LEE, LOREN GRUSH AND BLOOMBERG
April 26, 2023 at 8:22 AM GMT+8

GettyImages-1251733288-e1682468066857.jpg

Takeshi Hakamada, founder and chief executive officer of Ispace.
KIYOSHI OTA/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES

Tokyo-based Ispace said it lost contact with a lander bound for the moon and that the spacecraft likely made a hard landing on the lunar surface, ending the mission.

The company aimed to become the first commercial space attempt to place a lander on the moon intact, with its Hakuto-R Mission 1 lander scheduled to touch down early Wednesday morning Japan time. But communication with the spacecraft was lost shortly after engineers confirmed the lander was in a vertical position on final approach.

“It has been determined that there is a high probability that the lander eventually made a hard landing on the moon’s surface,” it said in a statement issued Wednesday in Tokyo.
Chief Executive Officer Takeshi Hakamada said the mishap would not deter the company from future missions.

“What is important is to feed this knowledge and learning back to Mission 2 and beyond so that we can make the most of this experience,” he said in the statement.
Ispace launched its lander in December aboard one of Elon Musk’s SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets. It entered lunar orbit in March and was carrying two rovers and other payloads.

The company earlier this month publicly listed its shares on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The stock closed down 1% on Tuesday in Japan. CEO Hakamada is the second-largest shareholder with an ownership stake of about 15%.

Ispace is one of several companies hoping to place the first commercial lander on the moon’s surface. Two US firms, Houston-based Intuitive Machines Inc. and Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic Technology Inc., have uncrewed missions planned for later this year.

Officially formed in 2010 to compete in the Google Lunar X Prize, the Tokyo-based company has said it wants to create a lunar settlement by 2040. It plans to make money by delivering equipment and goods to and from the moon.

Ispace also has partnered with the US-based Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, which holds a $73 million contract with NASA to deliver a suite of the agency’s payloads to the lunar surface in 2025, a small part of NASA’s Artemis program to return astronauts to the moon.

Only governments and superpowers have been able to successfully land vehicles on the moon. The Israeli nonprofit SpaceIL, another Google Lunar X Prize team, tried in 2019 to place the first privately funded lander on the moon, but the spacecraft came in too fast and crashed on the surface.

Japan’s space efforts have recently experienced several setbacks.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s H3 rocket, designed and manufactured by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. to meet growing demand for rockets with large payload capacity, failed to launch once in February after a system malfunction kept it grounded, and again in March when a self-destruct order was sent mid-flight after its second-stage booster failed to ignite.

US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced last May that their countries would work together to put the first Japanese astronaut on the moon. A dearth of young astronauts led the Japanese space agency in February to recruit two civilians, a Red Cross surgeon and a World Bank senior employee.

 
Japan had a successful launch yesterday of two payloads. A sophisticated X-Ray observatory and a moon lander.


People may get more excited about the lander, which is yet another object on moon, but X-Ray telescope has the potential to reveal amazing information. If it works as planned, we may even 'see' the first 'light' after the Big Bang. i.e., the earliest photons emitted by the still forming universe.
 
TBH Japan have no experience in real Space technology / exploration. The Japs are riding on false reputation that japanese people and technology are superior , which is not true especially in hard industries like the junks they built for their own military,

ISRO , although funded by shoestring budget and have low quality manpower / tech knowledge , still able to do a bit of space exploration FAR more than Japan or even NASA.

in space technology , it is China #1 , Russia #2 , India #3 and US #4.. Japan is not even on the list
 
TBH Japan have no experience in real Space technology / exploration. The Japs are riding on false reputation that japanese people and technology are superior , which is not true especially in hard industries like the junks they built for their own military,

ISRO , although funded by shoestring budget and have low quality manpower / tech knowledge , still able to do a bit of space exploration FAR more than Japan or even NASA.

in space technology , it is China #1 , Russia #2 , India #3 and US #4.. Japan is not even on the list
Too be fair Japan space technology is actually very advance.
Japan work horse, the HIIA payload to LEO is 15tons and to GEO is 6tons. Total 45launches.
India most advance GSLV Mark3 can only send 10tons to LEO and 4tons to GEO. Only 7 launches to date.

Further more Japan has build a 15.9ton manned module for the Space Station.
They have also brought back sample of asteroid in a sample-return mission.

I would rank them way ahead of India. They should go for manned mission, they certainly have the capability.
 

NASA and Japan to Launch World’s First Wooden Satellite in 2024​


 
Too be fair Japan space technology is actually very advance.
Japan work horse, the HIIA payload to LEO is 15tons and to GEO is 6tons. Total 45launches.
India most advance GSLV Mark3 can only send 10tons to LEO and 4tons to GEO. Only 7 launches to date.

Further more Japan has build a 15.9ton manned module for the Space Station.
They have also brought back sample of asteroid in a sample-return mission.

I would rank them way ahead of India. They should go for manned mission, they certainly have the capability.

Fair is not his gameplan. Trolling responses are.
 
TBH Japan have no experience in real Space technology / exploration. The Japs are riding on false reputation that japanese people and technology are superior , which is not true especially in hard industries like the junks they built for their own military,

ISRO , although funded by shoestring budget and have low quality manpower / tech knowledge , still able to do a bit of space exploration FAR more than Japan or even NASA.

in space technology , it is China #1 , Russia #2 , India #3 and US #4.. Japan is not even on the list
Japan's space technology is not weak, they just lack funding. We never belittle the Japanese.
 
Japan's space technology is not weak, they just lack funding. We never belittle the Japanese.
H2A is a powerful rocket and should not be underestimated, their problem is due to lack of investment for almost a decade and the dependence on US. Chinese will never underestimate the Japs. They seems to have a deficiency in landing algorithms and deep space control.
 
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