Japan's ispace assumes failure in bid to make first commercial moon landing (updated)

Ispace

25/04/2023 18:33

(Adds latest mission updates of likely failure)
    By Kantaro  Komiya and Joey Roulette
       April 25 (Reuters) - Japanese startup ispace  9348.T  
assumed failure in its attempt to make the first private moon
landing on Tuesday as engineers struggled to regain contact with
the company's Hakuto-R Mission 1 (M1) lander long after it was
due for a lunar touchdown.
    "We lost the communication, so we have to assume that we
could not complete the landing on the lunar surface," ispace CEO
Takeshi Hakamada said on a company live stream, as mission
control engineers in Tokyo continued to try regaining contact
with the lander.
    The M1 lander appeared set to touch down around 12:40 p.m.
Eastern time (1640 GMT Tuesday) after coming as close as 295
feet from the lunar surface, a live animation of the lander's
telemtry showed. 
    The spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a
SpaceX rocket in December and has completed several mission
objectives leading up to its landing attempt.

 (Reporting by Kantaro Komiya; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim, Stephen
Coates and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
 ((Kantaro.Komiya@thomsonreuters.com; Twitter: @kantarokomiya;))