Japan’s ispace says the lunar lander accelerated unexpectedly and likely crashed

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s ispace Corporation (9348.T) said its attempt to make the first private moon landing failed after it lost contact with the Hakuto-R Mission 1 (M1) lander when it accelerated unexpectedly and may have crashed into the lunar surface. The surface of the moon.

The startup said it was possible that as the probe approached the moon, its altimeter system miscalculated the distance to the surface.

“It appears to have fallen freely towards the surface as it was running out of fuel to fire the thrusters,” Chief Technology Officer Ryo Ojii said at a press conference on Wednesday.

This was the second setback for commercial space development in a week after a SpaceX Starship rocket exploded spectacularly minutes after rising from the launch pad.

No private company has yet succeeded in landing on the moon. Only the United States, the former Soviet Union and China have spacecraft that have soft-landed on the moon, with attempts in recent years by India and a private Israeli company also ending in failure.

Ispace, which flies payloads like rovers to the moon and sells related data, had just listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange two weeks ago, and the frenzy of excitement over its prospects has sent its shares up nearly sevenfold since then.

But the disappointment led to a glut of sell orders on Wednesday. After the stock was untraded all day, the stock finished down 20% at the compulsory closing price set by the exchange which reflects the balance of buy and sell orders.

Japanese government spokesperson Hirokazu Matsuno said that while it was sad that the mission was unsuccessful, the country wanted space to “keep trying” because its efforts were important to the development of the domestic space industry.

Japan, which has set itself the goal of sending Japanese astronauts to the Moon by the late 2020s, has had some recent setbacks. Last month, the National Space Agency had to destroy its new H3 medium-lift rocket upon arrival in space after the second-stage engine failed to ignite. The solid-fuel Epsilon rocket also failed after its launch in October.

Brakes on a ski slope

Four months after it was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a SpaceX rocket, the M1 probe appeared poised to land autonomously at about 1:40 a.m. JST (1640 GMT Tuesday), with animations based on live telemetry data. which appear to come within 90 meters (295 ft) of the lunar surface.

By the time of the expected touchdown, mission control had lost contact with the lander and the engineers seemed anxious about the live broadcast as they waited for confirmation of its fate that never came.

CEO Takeshi Hakamada said the probe has completed eight out of the mission’s 10 targets in space that will provide valuable data for the next landing attempt in 2024.

Roughly an hour before the planned descent, the 2.3-meter-tall M1 began its descent phase, gradually tightening its orbit around the Moon from 100 kilometers (62 miles) above the surface to nearly 25 kilometers, and traveling at 6,000 kilometers per hour (3,700 miles). per hour). ).

At such a speed, slowing the probe to the correct speed against the moon’s gravitational pull is like hitting the brakes of a bicycle on the edge of a ski-jumping ramp, Augie said.

The rover was intended for a landing site on the edge of Mare Frigoris in the lunar northern hemisphere where it was to deploy a two-wheeled, baseball-sized rover developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Tomy Co Ltd (7867.T) and Sony Group Corporation (6758.T). It also plans to deploy a four-wheeled rover dubbed Rashid from the United Arab Emirates.

The probe was carrying an experimental solid-state battery made by Niterra Co Ltd (5334.T) among other instruments to measure its performance on the moon.

The mission was insured by Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Company, a unit of MS & AD Insurance Group (8725.T), and ispace said it may receive some compensation.

Reporting by Kantaro Komiya; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim and Stephen Coates

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