Looks like ispace Moon landing has failed

UPDATED Japanese firm ispace’s latest attempt to land a craft on the Moon appears to have failed, after its Hakuto-R lander, dubbed Reliance, went dark while approaching the lunar surface.

In a livestreamed event, ispace showed telemetry detailing the probe’s speed and altitude on its landing run towards the Mare Frigoris (Sea of Cold). 102 seconds before scheduled touchdown, however, telemetry stopped reporting speed but did deliver an altitude of negative 233 meters (732 feet), which is clearly a glitch. You can watch the critical moments of the mission below.

Youtube Video

According to one witness in the control room, there was silence after the signal was lost, then ispace switched to prerecorded film about the spacecraft and its instruments. The company says it can’t communicate with the spacecraft and promised to reveal more info at a press conference promised to take place at 0000 UTC.

ispace has big dreams for lunar development, including a proposed 1,000-person self-sustaining city on the Moon, with over 10,000 tourists visiting a year. Its plans to have this built by 2040 look rather optimistic, given its troubles landing on the moon so far.

On its previous mission, in April 2023, ispace’s lander carrying a rover built in the United Arab Emirates attempted a soft landing in the Atlas crater. The livestream showed it getting to within 10 meters (33 feet) of the lunar surface before it crashed, apparently due to a computer malfunction.

Reliance carried a rover called Tenacious, designed and built by the Luxembourg National Space Programme. The rover bore an odd payload: The Moonhouse, a model of a Swedish cottage made by the artist Mikael Genberg and painted in the traditional red color used on such buidlings. It also carried scientific experiments, plus a memory disc from UNESCO containing its Constitution’s Preamble in 275 languages.

Space is hard, and ispace had hoped to be the first private company to manage a soft landing. However, the Odysseus lander, built by American company Intuitive Machines, beat them to it in February last year, albeit crushing one of its legs in the attempt.

The following month, Texan start-up Firefly Aerospace achieved a perfect touchdown with its Blue Ghost lander. Both the Japanese and Texan businesses plan further excursions to our largest natural satellite.

Presumably ispace would like to make a landing too, otherwise its Moon city city proposal isn’t really going to happen.

We’ll update this article as more information becomes available. ®

UPDATED AT 00:30 UTC

At a somber press conference ispace officials said it’s technically possible that the lander made it to the surface intact, but as the company cannot communicate with the it considers the mission a failure.

CEO Tekeshi Hakamada offered his apologies to those involved and the companies supporting ispace, saying he felt very sorry about it and took responsibility. He said that the planned third and fourth missions will proceed once the team analyzes information from this flight and makes any necessary changes to its.

It appears the altitude measurement system was faulty and the spacecraft was moving too fast as it came in to land. The team isn’t sure if this is related to the first crash but they are still assessing the root cause.

“I have to admit we are behind, that is a fact,” said CFO Jumpei Nozaki. “But we do not think we are too far behind yet. The players in the world that can send landers to the moon are very few so we still have some competitive edge.