Japanese space company loses contract with its moon lander

By Esra Tekin

ISTANBUL (AA) - Japanese company Ispace, whose first moon landing mission ended in failure, lost communication with its robotic lander "Resilience" during its second attempt, it announced late Thursday

After its spacecraft crashed during the 2023 moon landing attempt, the company faced new difficulties with its second "Hakuto-R" mission, which was launched on Jan. 15.

Ispace streamed the descent of the Resilience spacecraft live, expecting a successful landing, but communication with the vehicle was lost during the broadcast.

The mission aimed to explore and test food and water resources on the Moon for future exploration. Shortly after the countdown ended, company officials announced that they could not confirm the spacecraft's landing but would continue efforts to re-establish contact.

On Jan. 15, SpaceX launched Ispace's Resilience spacecraft along with Firefly Aerospace's "Blue Ghost" lander aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Firefly Aerospace's "Blue Ghost" successfully landed on the Moon in March to collect dust and measure surface temperatures.

Ispace's "Hakuto-R Mission 1" spacecraft was launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in December 2022.

It successfully entered lunar orbit on March 21, 2023, but Ispace announced that it lost contact with the lander from its Tokyo control center on April 26, 2023.

It was believed the vehicle may have crashed during the landing attempt.