Latest news with #Hakamada
The Star
07-06-2025
- Business
- The Star
Ispace aborts Moon mission
Space setback: Hakamada (centre) waiting with members of his team for news of the expected landing on the Moon by the company's Resilience craft, in Tokyo. — AFP The country's hopes of achieving its first soft touchdown on the Moon by a private company were dashed when the mission was aborted after an assumed crash-landing, the startup said. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to make history as only the third private firm – and the first outside the United States – to achieve a controlled arrival on the lunar surface. But 'based on the currently available data ... it is currently assumed that the lander likely performed a hard landing', the startup said yesterday. 'It is unlikely that communication with the lander will be restored' so 'it has been decided to conclude the mission', ispace said in a statement. The failure comes two years after a prior mission ended in a crash. The company's unmanned Resilience spacecraft began its daunting final descent and 'successfully fired its main engine as planned to begin deceleration', ispace said. Mission control confirmed that the lander's positioning was 'nearly vertical' – but contact was then lost, with the mood on a livestream from mission control turning sombre. Technical problems meant 'the lander was unable to decelerate sufficiently to reach the required speed for the planned lunar landing', ispace said. To date, only five nations have achieved soft lunar landings: the Soviet Union, the United States, China, India and most recently Japan. Now, private companies are joining the race, promising cheaper and more frequent access to space. On board the Resilience lander were several high-profile payloads. They included Tenacious, a Luxembourg-built micro rover; a water electrolyser to split molecules into hydrogen and oxygen; a food production experiment; and a deep-space radiation probe. The rover also carried 'Moonhouse' – a small model home designed by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg. 'I take the fact that the second attempt failed to land seriously,' chief executive officer Takeshi Hakamada told reporters. 'But the most important thing is to use this result' for future missions, he said, describing a 'strong will to move on, although we have to carefully analyse what happened'. Last year, Houston-based Intuitive Machines became the first private enterprise to reach the Moon. Though its uncrewed lander touched down at an awkward angle, it still managed to complete tests and transmit photos. Then in March this year, Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost – launched on the same SpaceX rocket as ispace's Resilience – aced its lunar landing attempt. The mood ahead of yesterday's attempt had been celebratory, with a watch party also held by ispace's US branch in Washington. After contact was lost, announcers on an ispace livestream signed off with the message: 'Never quit the lunar quest.' The mission had also aimed to collect two lunar soil samples and sell them to Nasa for US$5,000 (RM21,150). Though the samples would remain on the Moon, the symbolic transaction is meant to strengthen the US stance that commercial activity – though not sovereign claims – should be allowed on celestial bodies. — AFP
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Private Japanese Lunar Lander Crashes Into Moon's Surface
Resilience, a lunar lander produced by the Japanese aerospace firm Ispace, has crashed into the Moon's surface. The lander was Ispace's second failed attempt at placing a spacecraft on the Moon; a third will follow in 2027. After launching into space on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in January and spending nearly six months on a gravity-fueled journey toward the Moon, Resilience was poised to land Thursday afternoon (early Friday morning in Japan). If all went well, the lander would touch down near the center of Mare Frigoris, a lunar sea near the Moon's north pole. But all did not go well. One minute and 45 seconds before Resilience's scheduled touchdown, mission control abruptly lost communication with the spacecraft. In the minutes immediately following the scheduled landing (3:17 p.m. EST, or 4:17 a.m. JST), Ispace terminated its live stream, noting that it would continue to attempt contact with Resilience. That's the message the company continued to communicate on social media for roughly two hours after Resilience went quiet. The last telemetry update Ispace provided before terminating its live stream. Credit: Ispace Then, at nearly 8:30 p.m. EST, Ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada appeared in an impromptu media conference to confirm that the mission was a failure. Mission control would no longer attempt to reestablish communications with its spacecraft. "This is our second failure, and about these results, we have to really take it seriously,' Hakamada said in translation, referring to the company's first attempt to place a lander on the Moon in April 2023. Though Ispace hasn't had enough time to conduct a thorough postmortem investigation, its engineers believe Resilience experienced a "hard landing" on the lunar surface, according to a statement published Friday morning. "The laser rangefinder used to measure the distance to the lunar surface experienced delays in obtaining valid measurement values," the statement reads. "As a result, the lander was unable to decelerate sufficiently to reach the required speed for the planned lunar landing. Based on these circumstances, it is currently assumed that the lander likely performed a hard landing on the lunar surface." Ispace will nonetheless attempt a soft landing again in 2027, when its third and fourth missions aim a new spacecraft, Apex 1.0, at the far side of the Moon.
Daily Mirror
06-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mirror
Japanese rover smashes into moon in fresh disaster for embattled space company
Japanese company ispace has declared a second failure in a bid for its lunar lander to touchdown on the moon after communication was lost less than two minutes before the scheduled grounding A lunar lander from a Japanese company crashed while attempting a touchdown on the moon in the latest casualty in the commercial rush to the moon and the second failure for the same company. The Tokyo-based company ispace declared the mission a failure several hours after communication was lost with the lander. Flight controllers scrambled to gain contact, but were met with only silence and said they were concluding the mission. Communications ceased less than two minutes before the spacecraft's scheduled landing on the moon with a mini rover. Until then, the descent from lunar orbit seemed to be going well. CEO and founder Takeshi Hakamada apologized to everyone who contributed to the mission, the second lunar strikeout for ispace. Two years ago, the company's first moonshot ended in a crash landing, giving rise to the name 'Resilience' for its successor lander. Resilience carried a rover with a shovel to gather lunar dirt as well as a Swedish artist's toy-size red house for placement on the moon's dusty surface. Company officials said it was too soon to know whether the same problem doomed both missions. This is the second time that we were not able to land. So we really have to take it very seriously,' Hakamada told reporters. He stressed that the company would press ahead with more lunar missions. A preliminary analysis indicates the laser system for measuring the altitude did not work as planned, and the lander descended too fast, officials said. 'Based on these circumstances, it is currently assumed that the lander likely performed a hard landing on the lunar surface,' the company said in a written statement. Moon missions had previously been the preserve of governments but it became a target of private outfits in 2019, with more flops than wins along the way. Launched in January from Florida on a long, roundabout journey, Resilience entered lunar orbit last month. It shared a SpaceX ride with Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost, which reached the moon faster and became the first private entity to successfully land there in March. Another US company, Intuitive Machines, arrived at the moon a few days after Firefly. But the tall, spindly lander face-planted in a crater near the moon's south pole and was declared dead within hours. Resilience was targeting the top of the moon, a less treacherous place than the shadowy bottom. The ispace team chose a flat area with few boulders in Mare Frigoris or Sea of Cold, a long and narrow region full of craters and ancient lava flows that stretches across the near side's northern tier. Plans had called for the 7.5-feet Resilience to beam back pictures within hours and for the lander to lower the piggybacking rover onto the lunar surface this weekend. Made of carbon fibre-reinforced plastic with four wheels, ispace's European-built rover — named Tenacious — sported a high-definition camera to scout out the area and a shovel to scoop up some lunar dirt for NASA. The rover, weighing just 5kgs, was going to stick close to the lander, going in circles at a speed of less than two centimetres per second. It was capable of venturing up to two-thirds of a mile from the lander and should be operational throughout the two-week mission, the period of daylight. Besides science and tech experiments, there was an artistic touch. The rover held a tiny, Swedish-style red cottage with white trim and a green door, dubbed the Moonhouse by creator Mikael Genberg, for placement on the lunar surface. Minutes before the attempted landing, Hakamada assured everyone that ispace had learned from its first failed mission. 'Engineers did everything they possibly could' to ensure success this time, he said. He considered the latest moonshot 'merely a steppingstone' to its bigger lander launching by 2027 with NASA involvement. Ispace, like other businesses, does not have 'infinite funds' and cannot afford repeated failures, Jeremy Fix, chief engineer for ispace's US subsidiary, said at a conference last month. While not divulging the cost of the current mission, company officials said it's less than the first one which exceeded £74million. Two other US companies are aiming for moon landings by year's end: Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and Astrobotic Technology. Astrobotic's first lunar lander missed the moon altogether in 2024 and came crashing back through Earth's atmosphere. For decades, governments competed to get to the moon. Only five countries have pulled off successful robotic lunar landings: Russia, the US, China, India and Japan. Of those, only the US has landed people on the moon: 12 NASA astronauts from 1969 through 1972. NASA expects to send four astronauts around the moon next year. That would be followed a year or more later by the first lunar landing by a crew in more than a half-century, with SpaceX's Starship providing the lift from lunar orbit all the way down to the surface. China also has moon landing plans for its own astronauts by 2030.
North Wales Chronicle
06-06-2025
- Business
- North Wales Chronicle
Japanese lunar lander crashes while attempting touchdown on the Moon
Tokyo-based company ispace declared the mission a failure several hours after communication was lost with the lander. Flight controllers scrambled to gain contact, but were met with only silence and said they were concluding the mission. Communications ceased less than two minutes before the spacecraft's scheduled landing on the Moon with a mini rover. Until then, the descent from lunar orbit seemed to be going well. Takeshi Hakamada, ispace chief executive officer and founder, apologised to everyone who contributed to the mission, the second lunar strikeout for the company. Two years ago, the company's first moonshot ended in a crash landing, giving rise to the name Resilience for its successor lander. Resilience carried a rover with a shovel to gather lunar dirt as well as a Swedish artist's toy-size red house for placement on the Moon's dusty surface. Company officials said it was too soon to know whether the same problem doomed both missions. 'This is the second time that we were not able to land. So we really have to take it very seriously,' Mr Hakamada told reporters. He stressed the company would press ahead with more lunar missions. A preliminary analysis indicates the laser system for measuring the altitude did not work as planned and the lander descended too fast, officials said. 'Based on these circumstances, it is currently assumed that the lander likely performed a hard landing on the lunar surface,' the company said in a written statement. Long the province of governments, the Moon became a target of private outfits in 2019, with more flops than successes along the way. Launched in January from Florida on a long, roundabout journey, Resilience entered lunar orbit last month. It shared a SpaceX ride with Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost, which reached the Moon faster and became the first private entity to successfully land there in March. Another US company, Intuitive Machines, arrived at the Moon a few days after Firefly. But the tall, spindly lander face-planted in a crater near the south pole and was declared dead within hours. Resilience was targeting the top of the Moon, a less treacherous place than the shadowy bottom. The ispace team chose a flat area with few boulders in Mare Frigoris or Sea of Cold, a long and narrow region full of craters and ancient lava flows that stretches across the near side's northern tier. Plans had called for the 7.5ft Resilience to beam back pictures within hours and for the lander to lower the piggybacking rover onto the lunar surface this weekend. Made of carbon fibre-reinforced plastic with four wheels, ispace's European-built rover — named Tenacious — sported a high-definition camera to scout out the area and a shovel to scoop up some lunar dirt for Nasa. The rover was going to stick close to the lander, going in circles at a speed of less than one inch per second.
South Wales Guardian
06-06-2025
- Business
- South Wales Guardian
Japanese lunar lander crashes while attempting touchdown on the Moon
Tokyo-based company ispace declared the mission a failure several hours after communication was lost with the lander. Flight controllers scrambled to gain contact, but were met with only silence and said they were concluding the mission. Communications ceased less than two minutes before the spacecraft's scheduled landing on the Moon with a mini rover. Until then, the descent from lunar orbit seemed to be going well. Takeshi Hakamada, ispace chief executive officer and founder, apologised to everyone who contributed to the mission, the second lunar strikeout for the company. Two years ago, the company's first moonshot ended in a crash landing, giving rise to the name Resilience for its successor lander. Resilience carried a rover with a shovel to gather lunar dirt as well as a Swedish artist's toy-size red house for placement on the Moon's dusty surface. Company officials said it was too soon to know whether the same problem doomed both missions. 'This is the second time that we were not able to land. So we really have to take it very seriously,' Mr Hakamada told reporters. He stressed the company would press ahead with more lunar missions. A preliminary analysis indicates the laser system for measuring the altitude did not work as planned and the lander descended too fast, officials said. 'Based on these circumstances, it is currently assumed that the lander likely performed a hard landing on the lunar surface,' the company said in a written statement. Long the province of governments, the Moon became a target of private outfits in 2019, with more flops than successes along the way. Launched in January from Florida on a long, roundabout journey, Resilience entered lunar orbit last month. It shared a SpaceX ride with Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost, which reached the Moon faster and became the first private entity to successfully land there in March. Another US company, Intuitive Machines, arrived at the Moon a few days after Firefly. But the tall, spindly lander face-planted in a crater near the south pole and was declared dead within hours. Resilience was targeting the top of the Moon, a less treacherous place than the shadowy bottom. The ispace team chose a flat area with few boulders in Mare Frigoris or Sea of Cold, a long and narrow region full of craters and ancient lava flows that stretches across the near side's northern tier. Plans had called for the 7.5ft Resilience to beam back pictures within hours and for the lander to lower the piggybacking rover onto the lunar surface this weekend. Made of carbon fibre-reinforced plastic with four wheels, ispace's European-built rover — named Tenacious — sported a high-definition camera to scout out the area and a shovel to scoop up some lunar dirt for Nasa. The rover was going to stick close to the lander, going in circles at a speed of less than one inch per second.
