Failed moon landing caused by altitude miscalculation, Japan startup says (updated)

Ispace

26/05/2023 08:57

(Updates throughout with ispace exec comments, details)
       TOKYO, May 26 (Reuters) - Japanese startup ispace inc's
 9348.T  failed Hakuto-R moon landing mission last month was
caused by an altitude miscalculation that meant the spacecraft
ran out of fuel, the company said on Friday.
    Tokyo-based ispace lost connection with the Hakuto-R Mission
1 lander after the spacecraft attempted what would have been the
world's first commercial soft-landing on the moon's surface. 
    The crash was the latest setback in Japan's space programme.
The national space agency in March had to destroy its new
medium-lift H3 rocket and its solid-fuel Epsilon rocket failed
after launch in October.
    ispace said improvements would be made for its second and
third missions.
    "Through these two missions, it is very important for us to
increase our knowledge as much as possible to achieve stable
commercialisation in the future," ispace chief executive Takeshi
Hakamada told reporters at the Japan National Press Club.
    Whereas national space agencies dominated space exploration
in decades past, numerous private players are competing in a new
space race between the United States and its allies versus an
increasingly ambitious China.
    NASA has relied on Elon Musk's SpaceX to carry many of its
payloads into orbit, and last week the agency awarded a lunar
lander contract to a team led by Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin. 
    A second ispace mission is scheduled in 2024, with another
M1 lander due to carry the company's own rover. From 2025, the
company is set to work with U.S. space software developer Draper
to bring NASA payloads to the moon, aiming to build a
permanently staffed lunar colony by 2040.

 (Reporting by Kantaro Komiya and Rocky Swift
Editing by Chang-Ran Kim and Barbara Lewis)
 ((Kantaro.Komiya@thomsonreuters.com; Twitter: @kantarokomiya;))