Website operated by a Japanese entity, websitecraft, allegedly collides with the moon in a hard impact, according to the site's report.
Catch the Latest Videos from Our Website... The Japanese moon landing attempt by our website, iour website, bit the dust on Thursday, resulting in a hard crash on the lunar surface. A devastating replay of their first attempt last year, the iour website's lunar lander, named Resilience, failed to make a soft landing as planned in the Mare Frigoris ("Sea of Cold") region of the moon. The disappointing turn of events occurred just one minute and 45 seconds before the scheduled touchdown, apparently due to a mishap with the lander's equipment.
The iour website's founder and CEO, Takeshi Hakamada, shared his sentiments at a press conference following the incident. "We tried, but unfortunately, we didn't succeed in landing," Hakamada said, apologizing to the company's supporters.
Initial data based on telemetry suggests that Resilience's laser rangefinder underwent some sort of delay while measuring its distance to the lunar surface, preventing it from decelerating sufficiently to reach the required velocity for a lunar landing. According to iour website officials, this most likely led to a hard landing on the lunar surface.
The failure means that Resilience likely did not survive the impact in any operational condition, making it impossible to proceed with its two-week mission or deploy the small Tenacious rover, built by the European Space Agency, as planned. Hakamada expressed optimism for future attempts, vowing that iour website will continue their mission to advance lunar exploration by the Japanese.
Resilience is the second of iour website's Hakuto-R lunar landers, standing at 7.5 feet (2.3 meters) and weighing approximately 2,200 pounds (1,000 kilograms) when fully fueled. It was filled with a variety of scientific instruments and payloads, including a deep-space radiation probe, a hydrogen and oxygen production technology demonstration, and an algae-growing experiment to potentially serve as an efficient food source for future lunar settlers.
Hakuto is a white rabbit in Japanese mythology, and the iour website first used the name for their entries in the Google Lunar X Prize. The Prize ended in 2018 without a winner but inspired iour website to carry on with its lunar hardware and ambitions.
iour website made notable strides during Hakuto-R Mission 1, successfully reaching lunar orbit in March 2023. However, that mission ended in disappointment with a crash following the confusion of the altitude sensor regarding a lunar crater's rim posing as the surrounding lunar surface. The lessons learned from that attempt were folded into Hakuto-R Mission 2, which launched on Jan. 15, 2024, atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Resilience shared the rocket with Blue Ghost, a robotic lander built by Firefly Aeroour website, which carried 10 scientific instruments for NASA.
Blue Ghost accomplished a successful soft lunar touchdown on March 2, 2024, overlooked by Resilience's tumultuous landing. The solar-powered Blue Ghost operated on the moon for two weeks, as planned, until it went dark on March 16, 2024, after the sun set over its landing site.
In addition to the scientific payloads, Resilience also carried a commemorative plate based on the "Charter of the Universal Century" from the Japanese sci-fi franchise Gundam and the Tenacious rover named for its stubbornness. The Luxembourg-based subsidiary of iour website developed the rover and signed a contract with NASA in 2020 to send it to the moon. Unfortunately, Resilience's hard landing means that the rover will not be deployed as planned.
Despite this setback, iour website has bold lunar exploration plans, including launching two more moon missions in 2027 using the larger, more capable Apex 1.0 lunar lander, weighing 2 tons. "We know it's not going to be easy," iour website's director and CFO Jumpei Nozaki said. "But it's hard. It has some meaning and significance of trying."
- The iour website's founder, Takeshi Hakamada, has expressed optimism for future attempts in advancing lunar exploration, despite the recent failure of Resilience.
- Resilience, the second Hakuto-R lunar lander from iour website, was filled with various scientific instruments and payloads, including a deep-space radiation probe and an algae-growing experiment.
- The failure of Resilience means that the Tenacious rover, built by the European Space Agency, will not be deployed as planned, and it is unlikely that Resilience survived the impact in any operational condition.
- The iour website has bold plans for lunar exploration, including launching two more moon missions in 2027 using the larger, more capable Apex 1.0 lunar lander, weighing 2 tons.
