HAKUTO-R Mission 1 statement. Nothing is confirmed, but it does not look good.
I just want to give ispace founder Takeshi Hakamada a hug right now. They lost communications with Hakuto-R just before it was scheduled to touch down. "We have to assume that we did not complete the landing on the lunar surface."
He emphasizes a "sustainable business model" to support missions 2 and 3. "We will keep going."
Why am I getting a strong sense of deja vu from this? Was it their second attempt or was there another company with a very similar landing attempt a couple of years ago?
There are two to pick from: Israel's Beresheet lander (landing attempt April 2019), or India's Chandrayaan-2 lander (landing attempt September 2019).
Status of ispace HAKUTO-R Mission 1 Lunar Lander26 Apr, 2023TOKYO—April 26, 2023—ispace, inc., (ispace) a global lunar exploration company, announced today that the HAKUTO-R Mission 1 Lunar Lander was expected to land on the surface of the Moon at 1:40 am JST on April 26, 2023. At this time HAKUTO-R Mission Control Center in Nihonbashi, Tokyo has not been able to confirm the success of the Lunar Lander.ispace engineers and mission operations specialists in the Mission Control Center are currently working to confirm the current status of the lander. Further information on the status of the lander will be announced as it becomes available.
Quote from: whitelancer64 on 04/25/2023 05:36 pmThere are two to pick from: Israel's Beresheet lander (landing attempt April 2019), or India's Chandrayaan-2 lander (landing attempt September 2019).Yes, thank you. The Israeli one. The first privately funded landing effort. Didn't slow down enough. They too promised to try again. Wonder how they're doing.
Try and tell Takeshi that ispace Mission 1 was a failure.I just spoke to the CEO – thread below with his latest comments: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/25/ispace-moon-landing-watch-live.html
Hakamada: "I'm really proud of the current result. We acquired the flight data until the very end of the landing. And I am very thankful, grateful to the employees, everyone who has supported this mission."
Hakamada: "I need to have an engineering update on precisely until when we got data" but ispace's CTO said told him there was "communication almost to the very end of the landing."
Hakamada: "However, after that, they lost communication so they are investigating what happened at the time of the touchdown ... we will know more analysis in a couple of hours.""I don't have an update yet" on landing speed.
Hakamada: "Our engineers [are trying] to establish communication and they're also analyzing the flight data acquired until the loss of the communication and then try to understand what happened.""It's still early to say anything right now."
Hakamada says ispace has not yet reached out to NASA or heard from the agency about helping image the landing site with the LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter),
Hakamada: "I cannot tell anything" about whether it landed intact ... "I hope, I wish, but I cannot tell anything, any assumptions or confirmations at this moment."
Hakamada: "There's a great chance for us to improve and increase our maturity of technology and mission operations for the next missions. That is our great achievement."
Hakamada hasn't talked to Mission 1 customers yet, but his message to them "is that we already have a great asset in the flight data and we are the most advanced commercial transporter to the lunar surface ... keep continuing to trust us, and fly with us in the future."
Hakamada: "Our camera has been taking some images, but it depends [on whether ispace got any back of landing] ... I cannot say exactly right now."
