The Hakuto-R lunar lander attempted to touch down on the moon, but communications were lost and ispace CEO says he assumes it did not complete the landing
Perhaps the most difficult part of the mission came at the end, when the spacecraft needed to slow down from more than 750 kilometres per hour to zero over a period of less than 3 minutes. At a media briefing before the landing, the company’s CTOlikened slowing Hakuto-R down for a soft landing to “stepping on the brakes on a running bicycle at the edge of a ski jumping hill”. If Hakuto-R wasn’t able to slow down enough in the end, it may have crash-landed.
As ispace investigates the crash and applies the resulting knowledge to its planned second and third launches, two other firms intend to launch lunar landers during 2023. Both of those companies are based in the US – Intuitive Machines has the Nova-C lander, and Astrobotic has the Peregrine lander. With this crash, they will still be vying to be the first successful private
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