See it: New NASA images show crash site of failed Japanese lunar lander
On June 6, the second Hakuto mission, nicknamed Resilience, was set to touch down on a 3.5 billion-year-old volcanic region of the Moon known as Mare Frigoris, or the Sea of Cold. However, hours after the targeted touchdown, engineers at the mission control center (MCC) in Tokyo were still working to confirm the status of the spacecraft. The company said the spacecraft likely crash-landed on the surface.
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NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft recently took the images below of the Hakuto impact site.
Before-and-after images from the LRO camera show the halo of the crash site where lunar regolith was moved, according to Arizona State University, which manages the instrument on the NASA spacecraft.
The early-June landing attempt most likely ended in a splat on the Moon because the Laser Range Finder (LRF) hardware was not functioning as designed, according to the company's investigation. The LRF tells the lander where it is in position to the Moon and when it needs to decelerate for a soft landing.
The company said it focused on two possibilities that could have caused an issue with the LRF: an installation and assembly error or deterioration of the LRF during the spaceflight to the Moon.
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"The review detected no errors in the installation direction during AIT or attitude abnormalities during descent," ispace said in a news release. "The review therefore concluded that the possibility of 'deterioration in the performance of the LRF during flight or the performance itself was lower than expected' is high."
This is the second Moon landing attempt for ispace, and they don't plan to stop now. CEO Takeshi Hakamada said teams are already working on a correction for future missions.
"Since the moment of landing, we have remained committed to moving forward and identifying the root causes," Hakamada said. "For the past 18 days, every employee has worked tirelessly to be able to transparently share the results of the technical cause analysis. ispace will not let this be a setback. We will not stop here, but as determined pioneers of the cislunar economy, we will strive to regain the trust of all stakeholders and embark on the next mission: 'Never Quit the Lunar Quest.'"Original article source: See it: New NASA images show crash site of failed Japanese lunar lander
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