Japanese company: 'High probability' lander crashed on moon

No surprises there.

Better luck next time. Rocket science isn't easy.

The company has already raised $300 million to cover the first three missions, according to Hakamada

Support space exploration but can't help thinking these corporate efforts that often fail on efforts that have been done many times by governments are just massive tax shelter/ corporate welfare sinks.

Who is this Hakamada guy? I've been looking and he raised ¥10.2 billion for the company. You don't do that in Japan unless you have pretty solid connections.

Great try. Learning from failure will lead to success.

Embarrassing, but everyone knew it would be. Just wanting to be first...

It's already been done from a long, long time ago numerous times. Kinda hard to get excited about it now.

Wasn’t it back over 50 years ago that man walked on the moon?

Japan is looking very mediocre…

That’s a tough one, Zannen!

Excellent effort, though.

Good try but no more these attempts anymore, fix your own domestic business first!

Named Hakuto, Japanese for white rabbit,

There are numerous meanings to the word "hakuto!" in Japanese, and the most commonly used one is not "rabbit". Better to include the kanji, as to not misinform the readers. It would be a real peach of a thing to do!

Easy critics but who succeeded up to now ? No private companies. Only three governments.

Look at your country performance first if you are not from a successful country

Only three governments have successfully touched down on the moon: Russia, the United States and China. An Israeli nonprofit tried to land on the moon in 2019, but its spacecraft was destroyed on impact.

Pretty sure all other nations had failures before moon landings, not just Japan. This is the most cutting edge tech humans have developed - things can and do go wrong. iSpace will learn from this and come back better next time.

Good luck to Japan's iSpace with the next moon landing in 2024! Exciting times ahead for mankind.

What a load of unnecessary criticism. Amazing that people like @zizi would want to live in such an apparently backward country.

ET phone home. Tell the earthlings to stop with their pollution.

Not surprised

Great! Now they are dumping garbage on the moon. Who’s going to clean it up?

"...and a toylike robot from Japan designed to roll around in the moon dust. "

Figures...

Pretty sure all other nations had failures before moon landings, not just Japan. This is the most cutting edge tech humans have developed - things can and do go wrong. iSpace will learn from this and come back better next time.

I agree with your sentiments Fighto!. Interstella Inc. (miniature rockets) had a failure to launch a rocket, before they got it right 2 - 3 years ago.

Well, better luck next time.

25 kph tells the story here. Run yourself against a wall or throw something formed like that satellite against a wall at 25 kph speed for a very simple and cheaper test. That simply can’t work in the very most cases. No need for rocket scientists, even students in a physics lesson at a Junior High school quickly know or understand that.

China's moon missions have all been successful including the most recent one that returned Moon samples to Earth. It should be easier building on the experience of the USA and Soviet Union/Russia.

Pretty sure all other nations had failures before moon landings

The moon is suddenly hot again, with numerous countries and private companies clamoring to get on the lunar bandwagon. China has successfully landed three spacecraft on the moon since 2013, and U.S., China, India and South Korea have satellites currently circling the moon.

” … hot again “? That’s just code for “the moon is the next big business for the powerful and the rich”…; people started to lose interest in the moon in the second half of 1969…; I’m more interested in black holes and wormholes now…; not to mention that we currently have Curiosity and Perseverance in operation on Mars.

Space technology is very difficult and we saw that this week with the SpaceX rocket. The moon lander made the journey and failed, in the last part of the landing.

A large team of experts including foreigners is a big plus.

Setbacks only temporary, global science and tech. culture never gives - only thing that matters in space/cosmos. challenge never stops!

Wasn’t it back over 50 years ago that man walked on the moon?

Japan is looking very mediocre…

SpaceX's Starship launch and explosion spread potentially harmful debris far and wide

https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/spacexs-starship-launch-spread-potentially-harmful-debris-far-and-wide

Wasnt it back over 50 years than man launched a rocket?

The west is looking very mediocre.

Good try but no more these attempts anymore, fix your own domestic business first!

And you can say the same to Elon Musk.

Embarrassing, but everyone knew it would be. Just wanting to be first...

SpaceX Starship explosion spread particulate matter for miles

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/24/spacex-starship-explosion-spread-particulate-matter-for-miles.html

Embarrassing, but everyone knew it would be. Just wanting to be first...

Great! Now they are dumping garbage on the moon. Who’s going to clean it up?

SpaceX Starship explosion spread particulate matter for miles

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/24/spacex-starship-explosion-spread-particulate-matter-for-miles.html

Great! Now they are dumping garbage on the earth. Who’s going to clean it up?

...and a toylike robot from Japan designed to roll around in the moon dust. "

Figures...

SpaceX Starship explosion spread particulate matter for miles

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/24/spacex-starship-explosion-spread-particulate-matter-for-miles.html

and like American gun from USA

Figures.

Cookieboy: you are looking pretty defensive with all the finger-pointing. This wasn't SpaceX's fault, as much as you want to deflect blame, and it wasn't their failure.

deanzaZZRToday  08:27 am JST

China's moon missions have all been successful 

And China's statistics are always so forthright, honest and open to scrutiny...

At least these guys have been very been upfront about the failure, which should help them gain support for future attempts.

You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. Making mistakes and understanding them is all part of the learning process.

Back to to the Drawing Board!!?

Bunch of newbies and noobs. The Russians first did this back in 1966 (or 1959). They should stick to bitcoin.

Interesting that it is mentioned nowhere that the lander was actually built in Germany.

Ispace is in the end only a service provider which still has to prove it’s capabilities.

I'm more into the picture. They all have four major sponsors on their shirt sleeves. They look like they should be on a baseball team.

If it is lost, I hope they can find out why and try again soon.

@0rei0 Is this good enough or do I need to drop some Space News links? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Lunar_Exploration_Program

We all know that the USA and Soviet Union had advantages because of large investments in rocket technology during the Cold War. China has some of this advantage as well, although later. Japan has a structural disadvantage but has had some success in space science most notably the Hayabusa comet missions.

But I watched their graphic live and it looked like a perfect landing. No way would they fudge that data. No way.

OTOH, space is hard. Try again using all the data available. Think they have 2 more landing missions already funded.

Come on, it’s not rocket science… oh wait.

These space exploration project must be carry out by state sponsored agency instead by company or commercials. Space X is just wasting money and they will get bankrupted at the end!

Not anti-space exploration but wow, a lander designed for no beneficial purpose other than to leave junk on the moon and pacify someone's ego to become a historical footnote. Money wasted, on technology that makes no contribution to humanity or working to solving problems faced by the citizens of the country. Kind of reminds me of the great lyrical poetry of Gil Scott-Heron Whitey on the Moon. Instead of a taxi service to the moon, how about a taxi service for all the poor little ol' 'jichan, and 'babchans that struggle to make it out to obtain food or visit a doctor.

Like all tech. these days, Govt. inept, incapable, that's not opinion but what the current sitting AZ Senator said, guy who spent 15+ years as a US Astronaut.

Not just space, it's all tech., from cloud to vaccines, NOTHING comes from Govt. Those days are over, US has total reliance on SpaceX as it's a true global tech. culture that's performance based, not a lousy legacy bureaucracy. No talent works in legacy dead-end!

Keep pushing and believing, success never easy, bureaucrat success equals PAYCHECK after all!

Lot of hard work down the drain. Hope they succeed Next time

Good effort by the team, better luck next time. Please don't give up, anything worthwhile doing is always hard.

Meanwhile there are two American companies looking to do the same thing later this year... I think they're probably not all that disappointed.

I find it peculiar that they (Russia, US) could do it over 50 years ago with primative tech (compared to today) yet they countries like Japan can't do it today. India also failed in 2019.

@Cookieboy

SpaceX is attempting to do something that has never been accomplished-not so with this latest effort

deanzaZZRToday  07:01 am JST

Better luck next time. Rocket science isn't easy.

All our advances and progress have had some misfires, and in space science man is still just taking baby steps.

At the very least by impacting the lunar surface, scientists can determine the specifications of the terrain where the lander crashed.

Better luck next time, folks. It happens to all of us.

When I look at all these intelligent people staring intensely at monitors and screens and scrambling around with such endeavour,...I wonder wouldn't such time ,money, intensity, and endeavour be better off spent trying to solve some of the many problems that we all face here on "Mother Earth"......I wonder ?!?!?...DOH !!!

What a waste of money on this project especially since moon landing has already been done in the past!

@theresident

Amazing that people like @zizi would want to live in such an apparently backward country.

I don't. It's amazing you'd be so offended haha

GarlicJoeToday 09:43 am JST

Interesting that it is mentioned nowhere that the lander was actually built in Germany.

Ispace is in the end only a service provider which still has to prove it’s capabilities.

So the rocket was American, the lander German and the lunar rover Emirati. Apart from the toy robot was any of it actually Japanese?

No wonder when people are stuck in Newton's laws of the middle ages. A successful landing requires taking the law of entropy into account. A successful landing in this does not contribute enough to make it more likely than a crash landing.

Only three governments have successfully touched down on the moon: Russia, the United States and China.

It's not "Russia", it's Soviet Union.

Russian Federation's Mr. Rogosin killed RosKosmos - his government space agency.

As a little bonus I will lift it up for you, No, not the lander, more the topic, onto a higher philosophical level. Look around everywhere, we have had our zenith on this planet a few decades ago and now it’s decreasing or becoming more and more farther away from that zenith of development. So please, begin to adjust your expectations accordingly. There won’t be more smarter people, more ground breaking innovations or hi-tech milestones, more world peace, more wealth for everyone and so on. And of course that includes also no more working space exploration. Positive exceptions here and there? Yes, you’re right, as always they might occur but they’ll still only prove the bigger rule and tendency.

Why they had chosen the Atlas crater for the Moon lander landing site? I think the team was over confident.

Good effort. Space is hard but rewards persistence. Don't give up.

Bad Landing Gears I say, or poor suspensions, LOL

deanzaZZRToday  08:27 am

China's moon missions have all been successful including the most recent one that returned Moon samples to Earth. 

Strictly speaking China had its fair share of Long March 5 rocket failures causing delays to both the space station and lunar programmes. And in fact the Chang’e 5’s ascender damaged the descent vehicle so that it had to shut down. The mission was overall a great success but not without its problems.

Space really does appear to be hard. Best wishes to ispace, success is born from lessons learned in failure.

Too many French engineers from Ariane program - not enough boys from the quad delivering the best solutions. Watching the post event promotional video, I noticed certain amateurish behaviours which may have led to the project failure. The use of a cheap pen to complete an inventory task as well as the use of translators are merely 2. there are 106 more perhaps.

This is, literally, rocket science. It is not easy.

Lots of rockets don't even make liftoff. Some explode in flight killing everyone aboard.

I don't wanna read what our genius critics would have said about those.

Cars have been invented when?

Do they work always as intended?

Wow, never realized JT had so many members who are experts in the field of physics and space. Amazing!

Makes one wonder why this may have failed, with all the genius lurking around here, they all should have been able to do a better job than the folks at the company who actually DID all the work.

Like SpaceX biggest rocket explosion

Turns out rocket science is like rocket science

NASA's string of successes has spoiled people how hard it is

I find it peculiar that they (Russia, US) could do it over 50 years ago with primative tech (compared to today) yet they countries like Japan can't do it today. India also failed in 2019.

I see what you are insinuating there ;-)

Been there and done that as a scientist and worked on such projects in my life time I can agree several things could have happened that was mentioned in the story the flight controllers failed to adjust or compensate the thrusters ability to slow the vehicle down upon landing during it final approach which could have sent it tumbling out of control destroying critical hardware to communicate back to mission control. Or perhaps the engineers miscalculated the amount of fuel needed during the final approach and the the vehicle ran out of fuel rendering it uncontrollable for the thrusters to compensate for the landing. Or perhaps there was a fuel imbalance where one or several thrusters burned more fuel than the other causing thrust imbalance all of which could have caused the vehicle to have a unsuccessful soft landing and communicating back to command and control. These are some of my thoughts based on what I have read and my experience in this field. Another point, there is a guy taking a PICTURE on a cellphone during such a critical exercise had that happened during a mission I participated on he would have been toast. Fired!!!

Flight controllers ascertained that the lander was upright as it used its thrusters to slow during Wednesday’s final approach. Engineers monitoring the fuel gauge noticed that as the tank approached empty, the lander picked up speed as it descended and communication was then lost, according to ispace.

It’s possible the lander miscalculated its altitude and ran out of fuel before reaching the surface, company officials said at a news conference later in the day.

Another point, there is a guy taking a PICTURE on a cellphone during such a critical exercise had that happened during a mission I participated on he would have been toast. Fired!!!

By your logic, we shouldnt be seeing any pictures of this, as the people who are taking them, are doing so, during such a "critical exercise"

Is there a chance it crashed anywhere else?

Is there a chance it crashed anywhere else?

Haha, this joke is nice and I really hope for you that it is meant as a joke and not as a real question.