Moon's Cold Landing: Japan's ispace Lunar Lander Crashes Amid Commercial Lunar Rush
Japanese private lunar lander encountering mission failure, suffers crash onto lunar surface
In a disappointing turn of events, a private lunar lander from the Land of the Rising Sun slammed into the moon's surface on a Friday night, marking yet another casualty in the commercial lunar race. ispace, the Tokyo-based company, announced the mission as a failure hours post communication loss with the lander. Desperate attempts to recapture contact by the flight controllers yielded nothing but deafening silence, leading them to conclude the mission.
The disheartening silence descended less than two minutes before the moon was set to welcome the spacecraft with its mini rover aboard. Despite a seemingly promising descent from lunar orbit, the joyous occasion ended in tragedy.
CEO and founder Takeshi Hakamada issued a heartfelt apology to all those involved in the mission, stating that this was the second lunar fumble for the company. Their first lunar adventure ended in disaster two years prior, coining the name "Resilience" for its successor lander.
Resilience carried a rover equipped with a shovel to collect lunar soil and a Swedish artist's miniature red house designed for placement on the moon's dusty surface. However, it seems that both missions may have shared the same fate.
Company officials cautioned that it was far too early to pinpoint the causes of the repeated failures. Hakamada admitted, "We have to take it very seriously because we weren't able to land twice." Despite the setbacks, the company vowed to press ahead with more lunar ventures.
A preliminary investigation indicates that the lander's laser system for measuring altitude didn't operate as planned, causing the lander to plummet towards the lunar surface too quickly. "Based on these circumstances, it is currently assumed that the lander likely performed a hard landing on the lunar surface," the company stated.
Previously, the moon's explorations were the exclusive domain of governments. But 2019 saw the moon become a target for private sector outfits, with wins fewer than flops on the journey. Launched in January from Florida, Resilience entered lunar orbit last month, sharing a SpaceX ride with Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost, which successfully landed on the moon in March – a historic first for a private entity.
Another U.S. company, Intuitive Machines, reached the moon a few days after Firefly. However, their tall, spindly lander met an untimely end in a crater, near the moon's south pole. The ill-fated craft was declared dead within hours. Resilience, on the other hand, aimed for the moon's less treacherous top, a flat area with few obstacles in Mare Frigoris, or the Sea of Cold.
Plans called for Resilience to beam back images within hours and for the piggybacking rover to lower itself onto the lunar surface later in the weekend. The carbon-fiber rover, named Tenacious, sported a high-definition camera and a shovel to scoop up moon dust for NASA. Additionally, it carried a tiny, Swedish-style red cottage, named the Moonhouse, for placement on the lunar surface.
Despite the setbacks, ispace remains hopeful. Hakamada considers this latest lunar shot as merely a stepping stone to a more significant endeavor by 2027 with NASA's collaboration. With consecutive failures in their pocket, the company cannot afford infinite funds and repeated mission failures, as Jeremy Fix, chief engineer for ispace's U.S. subsidiary, noted at a recent conference.
Other companies aiming for moon landings by year's end include Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and Astrobotic Technology. Astrobotic's first lunar lander missed the moon altogether in 2024, resulting in a fiery crash through Earth's atmosphere.
Only a handful of countries (Russia, the U.S., China, India, and Japan) have successfully executed robotic lunar landings, with the U.S. being the only nation to have landed humans on the moon. NASA plans to send four astronauts around the moon next year, followed by the first lunar landing by a crew in over half a century, courtesy of SpaceX's Starship. China also has lunar landing plans for its astronauts by 2030.
[1] Space Daily, "ison, MoonXBase Successfully Deliver Payload to the International Space Station"[2] Aerospace America, "ison's lunar lander M1 faces 4 lunar impacts in May"
- The repeated failures in Japan's lunar missions, such as the recent crash of ispace's Resilience lander and the previous incident two years prior, underscore the challenges in harnessing technology for health benefits, echoing similar issues encountered in space-and-astronomy and even in the realm of science.
- As efforts continue to advance lunar exploration, the volatile landscape of the moon serves as a stark reminder of the complexities involved in scientific innovation, particularly the integration of technology in health endeavors and, more broadly, in areas ranging from space-and-astronomy to scientific research.
