Japan’s ispace fails second lunar landing mission

Tokyo-based company ispace said on Friday that its lander, named Resilience, dropped out of lunar orbit as planned and that the mission appeared to be going well, Al Jazeera reported.

But flight controllers lost contact with Resilience, which was carrying a mini rover, moments before its scheduled touchdown on the surface of the moon following an hourlong descent. Ground support was met with silence as they attempted to regain contact with the lander and after several hours declared the mission a failure.

The company’s livestream of the attempted landing then came to an abrupt end.

“We have to take seriously what happened,” ispace CEO and founder Takeshi Hakamada said after the failed mission, as he apologised to everyone who contributed.

This is the firm’s second failed attempt to soft land on the lunar surface, coming two years after the Japanese start-up’s first attempt to reach the moon ended in a crash landing.

MNA