Ispace: Japanese company loses contact with probe on the Moon – 04/25/2023 – Science
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Everything went according to plan on the landing of the Hakuto-R probe, from the Japanese company ispace this Tuesday (25) – until about 30 seconds before landing, when contact with the spacecraft was lost.
The mission may even have become the first of a private nature to perform a landing on the Moon, but the more likely by the minute is that the procedure has failed. “We have to assume that we haven’t completed the landing on the lunar surface,” said a dismayed Takeshi Hakamada, founder of ispace.
He emphasized that teams will continue to analyze the data to see what may have happened and will still try to contact the probe, although it is unlikely that there will be anything functional to contact.
As a result, the payloads carried by the mission are lost, including the Rashid rover, from the United Arab Emirates, a small vehicle from Jaxa, the Japanese space agency, and some experiments by the CSA, the Canadian space agency, in addition to items from commercial partners.
The tension was palpable in the control center in Tokyo as engineers followed the telemetry coming from the spacecraft. The last data that arrived indicated a speed of less than 40 km/h, and an altitude of less than 100 meters, suggesting that all phases of approach to landing, including placing the vehicle vertically, were successful up to that point.
This is no trivial feat, considering the months of mission in deep space. Launched on November 28 of last year, Hakuto-R reached 1 million km from Earth and then returned to be captured by lunar gravity, about 384,000 km from here.
The orbital insertion operations were successful – as the probe became the first private spacecraft to orbit the Moon – and the automated descent into Atlas Crater, in the northeast region of the hemisphere near the Moon, proceeded as scheduled, reducing the altitude of 100 km at practically zero, as well as a speed of 6,000 km/h. Much of the process was also done without telemetry, as the spacecraft passed behind the natural satellite, but it was perfectly in line with expectations.
It is the second attempt by a private entity to carry out a lunar landing. Prior to Hakuto-R, in 2019, the Israeli module Beresheet unsuccessfully attempted a landing. Between the two, the Indian space agency also failed in the attempt, remembering that performing a smooth descent on the lunar surface is not trivial. To date, only three countries have succeeded: Russia, the US and China.
ispace remains committed to the project. “We are not going to abandon the lunar search,” Hakamada said. The company says it already has guaranteed funding for the next attempt, Mission 2, in principle ready to fly in 2024. The third mission, in partnership with Draper, would depart in 2025, transporting cargo for NASA – but, for her, at the moment there is only partial funding.
Other companies are also continuing the development of their lunar landing modules, as participants in the American space agency’s commercial program to transport cargo to the Moon. To confer who will have the honor of becoming the first to carry out a successful landing and inaugurate a new era of lunar exploration, with strong interaction between space agencies and private companies.
The ten steps of the Hakuto-R mission
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Finalize launch preparation
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complete the release
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Establish contact and command between the mission control center and the module
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Complete the module’s first maneuver
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Operation of a module flight for one month
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Test maneuver control before inserting the module into Moon orbit
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Insert the equipment into the orbit of the Moon
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Perform module control maneuvers already in orbit of the Moon
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Final landing on the surface of the Moon (attempted this Tuesday; conclusion uncertain)
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Delivering module payloads to establishing a stable telecommunication system on the lunar surface
Collaborated Samuel Fernandes, from São Paulo
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