UAE Moon mission: Contact lost with HAKUTO-R lander, hard landing on lunar surface likely

Japan’s ispace has lost contact with the HAKUTO-R M1 lunar lander, which was carrying the Rashid Rover.

The seven-foot M1 began the landing sequence from a 100km orbit on Tuesday evening.

The company issued an update on Twitter to that effect.

Our HAKUTO-R M1 lunar lander was scheduled to land on the surface of the Moon at approx. 1:40 (JST). As of 8:00 today (JST), communication between the lander at the Mission Control Center was lost and it has been determined that Success 9 of the milestones is not achievable.(1/3)

— ispace (@ispace_inc) April 26, 2023

ispace has said it will continue to make the most of the data and know-how acquired during the operation through Success 8, and landing sequence, including aspects of Success 9, aiming “to dramatically improve the technological maturity of Mission 2 in 2024 and Mission 3 in 2025”.

Based on the currently available data, the HAKUTO-R Mission Control Center in Nihonbashi, Tokyo, confirmed that the lander was in a vertical position as it carried out the final approach to the lunar surface. Shortly after the scheduled landing time, no data was received indicating a touchdown.

ispace engineers monitored the estimated remaining propellant reached the lower threshold and shortly afterward the descent speed rapidly increased. After that, the communication loss happened. Based on this, it has been determined that there is a high probability that the lander eventually made a hard landing on the Moon’s surface.

To find the root cause of this situation, ispace engineers are currently working on a detailed analysis of the telemetry data acquired until the end of landing sequence and will clarify the details after completing the analysis.

Learning from HAKUTO-R Mission 1 journey

“Although we do not expect to complete the lunar landing at this time, we believe that we have fully accomplished the significance of this mission, having acquired a great deal of data and experience by being able to execute the landing phase. What is important is to feed this knowledge and learning back to Mission 2 and beyond so that we can make the most of this experience,” said Takeshi Hakamada, founder and CEO of ispace.

“Today, ispace’s HAKUTO-R Mission 1 became the first private company to attempt to land on the Moon, but unfortunately, the landing could not be realised, said Hiroshi Yamakawa, president of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

Meanwhile, the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre also released an official statement on Twitter.

An official announcement by the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre on the Emirates Lunar Mission “Rashid Rover”. pic.twitter.com/P63JQCZ2PA

— MBR Space Centre (@MBRSpaceCentre) April 26, 2023

The centre commended the efforts of ispace towards the lunar mission and said it was proud of its achievements of developing the rover and becoming the first Emirati and Arab lunar mission to enter the orbit of the Moon.

The ispace lander carrying Rashid rover executed the lunar orbit insertion manoeuvre at 5:24am UAE time on March 21, following the mission operation plan and under the guidance of lander engineers.

The manoeuvre involved a controlled burn from the lander’s main propulsion system and lasted for several minutes, and it was completed successfully.

Read: UAE’s Rashid rover enters Moon’s orbit