ispace Moon Lander Breaks Up After Losing Contact

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Japanese space startup ispace announced on June 6 that its second lunar lander had failed in its attempted moon landing earlier that morning. The mission was aiming to become the first private Asian lunar landing.

Based in Tokyo's Minato Ward, the space technology company had developed the lunar lander in-house. According to the company spokesperson, communication with Earth was lost just before the scheduled touchdown at 4:17 AM. ispace believes the lander crashed and suffered serious damage, rendering it inoperable. 

According to the company, the lander exited its circular lunar orbit at around 3:15 AM from an altitude of about 100 kilometers. It began a controlled descent lasting roughly one hour, firing its main and auxiliary engines to slow down and stabilize. The intended landing site was the "Sea of Ice" near the Moon's north pole.

Failure at Low Altitude Raises Fresh Questions

With constant monitoring, the lander was tracked down to an altitude of 192 meters. Soon after, however, communication was lost. Despite efforts to restore contact communications, no signal had returned by 9:00 AM. At that point, ispace concluded the spacecraft had crashed and broken apart on the lunar surface.

Flight data showed a fault in the altitude measurement system, which likely delayed deceleration. However, the exact cause is still unknown. ispace's first lander also failed in 2023 due to a similar issue. Although improvements were made, a repeat malfunction may have occurred.

CEO Takeshi Hakamada, speaking with a somber expression, said: "We take these two failures very seriously. We will fully investigate the cause and evaluate whether our fixes were adequate."

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Author: The Sankei Shimbun

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