A Japanese company (ispace) will be aiming to land its Hakuto-R lander on the moon this afternoon where it will carry out its various missions if the landing is successful. This will make it the first private company to land successfully if so and allow Japan some new bragging rights.
The landing will take place at 12:4o PM (EDT) and you will be able to watch here in the following video live stream of the event.
The lander was originally launched back in December via SpaceX, riding on a Falcon 9, where it started its journey toward the moon. It was able to enter the moon’s orbit where it readied itself for the landing that is being attempted today.
Its target landing site is the Atlas Crater, located in the northeastern quadrant of the Moon. If the landing is successful, it will attempt to release its payload, which includes the Rashid rover for Dubai’s Mohammed bin Rashid Spae Centre, supporting its own customer’s needs.
Updates:
- The lander appeared to complete its landing but they lost connection to its system in the process. ispace is currently waiting to re-establish that communication so that it can confirm if the landing was a success or not.
- Takeshi Hakamada (ispace founder and CEO) has announced that the company has considered the landing attempt to be unsuccessful. That the loss of communications is likely due to a crash. The scenario will continue to be investigated to determine what went wrong.
- Currently, the assumed failure was a sudden acceleration toward the end. This could be seen via the animation of its progress, where it suddenly accelerates into its landing. This likely resulted in a crash, thus a loss in communication from its systems.
