The unmanned Hakuto-R Mission 1 lander had been scheduled to touch down on the Moon's surface overnight, but about 25 minutes after the landing was to have occurred, the firm could not establish contact.
to land on the Moon had ended in failure, but pledged to move ahead with new missions.
Still, the apparent crash will be a frustrating end to a mission that began with the lander's launch last December aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. So far, only the United States, Russia and China have managed to put a spacecraft on the lunar surface, all through government-sponsored programmes.India also attempted to land a spacecraft on the moon in 2016, but it crashed.
"We hope everyone recognises — today is not the day to shy away from pursuing the lunar frontier, but a chance to learn from adversity and push forward."Ispace, which listed its shares on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Growth Market earlier this month, was already planning its next mission before the failure of Hakuto-R.
It also had the 10-kilogram chair-sized Rashid rover developed by the United Arab Emirates and an experimental imaging system from Canadensys Aerospace.
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