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A Japanese probe, which took off towards the moon three months ago, tried to land on the lunar surface yesterday (Tuesday).
The probe was supposed to be the first ever landing on the moon by a commercial spacecraft, however, at the moment of landing, the flight's lightning lost contact with the probe and failed to regain it, leading to the assumption that the spacecraft was lost.
A Japanese probe, which took off towards the moon three months ago, tried to land on the lunar surface yesterday (Tuesday).
The probe was supposed to be the first ever landing on the moon by a commercial spacecraft, however, at the moment of landing, the flight's lightning lost contact with the probe and failed to regain it, leading to the assumption that the spacecraft was lost.
The probe was built by the Japanese company Ispace, and carried the "Rashid" rover, which was built in the United Arab Emirates and is the first lunar spacecraft built by an Arab country.
The spacecraft was launched on December 11 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard a SpaceX rocket, made a three-month journey using a low-energy orbit, and finally entered lunar orbit.
Photo taken by the probe (photo: documentation on social networks according to Section 27 A of the Copyright Law, according to Section 27 A of the Copyright Law)
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The landing was supposed to take place yesterday, at 12:40 Israel time, which is Wednesday at 1:40 am Japan time.
However, as the landing process began, the mission control team lost contact with the vehicle.
20 minutes after the planned landing date, the CEO of Ispace stated that "we were unable to confirm a successful landing", and added that "we must assume that we could not complete the landing on the surface of the moon.
Our engineers continue to investigate the situation."
Despite this, the CEO added that the team was able to collect data from the probe until the landing attempt, and that it is still a "great achievement" that should help the company's future missions.
Until the loss of contact, Ispace shared regular updates about the mission on its Twitter account, including an image of Earth taken by the spacecraft.
The Lunar Exploration Company prepared for malfunctions.
"Acknowledging the possibility of an anomaly during the mission, the results will be considered and evaluated according to the criteria and will be incorporated into future missions already in development between now and 2025," the company stated in a post on December 11.
If successful, the 22-pound (10-kilogram) Rashid rover was expected to emerge from the lunar lander and spend "most of the 14-day lunar daylight hours exploring the Atlas crater in the northeast of the moon," according to the European report.
The space agency, which helped design the rover's wheels.
"The Rashid rover is equipped with one high-resolution camera on its front mast and another mounted on its rear, as well as a microscopic camera and a thermal imaging camera," ESA said.
"It also carries a 'Langmuir probe' to sample the plasma environment that prevails just above the lunar surface."
Japan's Ispace is one of several companies that competed in the "Google Lunar XPrize," which offered a $20 million prize to a company that could put a robotic rover on the moon, travel several thousand feet, and transmit data back to Earth.
The Israeli company SpaceIL was the first to compete in the XPrize competition.
In 2019, the company launched the Berashit spacecraft, but it failed to land and lost contact when it approached the surface of the moon.
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