Not this time: Japan’s first mission to the Moon FAILS

On the afternoon of last Tuesday (25), Japan’s first mission to the Moon took place, with the Hakuto-R probe. The module was launched in December and lost communication with Earth seconds before reaching the lunar soil, which profoundly affected the continuation of the mission.

There are no further details about what may have caused this communication issue. The live stream was cut off a few minutes after the scheduled landing time. Check out the footage of the launch:

If the moon landing were successful, an astromobile (space exploration vehicle) would be left on the lunar surface to conduct experiments. In addition to being the first Japanese probe, it would also be unique in that it would be the first private probe to carry out a space mission.

So far, the company responsible for Japan’s first mission to the Moon has not given any further information about what will be done following the failure of this latest attempt.

Details of Japan’s Moon Mission

Although this was Japan’s first mission to the Moon, other countries had already achieved this feat previously, such as China, the United States and Russia.

However, in all of these previous cases, the launch of the probe was the responsibility of a state space agency. Had it been successful, the Japanese module would have been the first private probe to be sent to the Moon.

The Japanese probe was named Hakuto-R. It is over two meters tall and weighs almost a ton when fully fueled. Inside the module there were two astromobiles: one built by the United Arab Emirates, the Rashid, weighing ten kilograms, and a Japanese one, spherical in shape, weighing only 250 grams.

Aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9, the probe was launched on December 11th last year. For this trip, a longer but more economical route was chosen considering fuel savings.