Japanese company loses contact with moon lander in likely crash

TOKYO (Agencies): A Japanese company has lost contact with its spacecraft moments before touchdown on the moon, saying the mission had apparently failed.

“We lost the communication, so we have to assume that we could not complete the landing on the lunar surface,” ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada said on a company livestream on Tuesday, as mission control engineers in Tokyo continued to try to regain contact with the lander.

A Japanese company has lost contact with its spacecraft moments before touchdown on the moon, saying the mission had apparently failed.

“We lost the communication, so we have to assume that we could not complete the landing on the lunar surface,” ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada said on a company livestream on Tuesday, as mission control engineers in Tokyo continued to try to regain contact with the lander.

With just 200 employees, ispace has said it “aims to extend the sphere of human life into space and create a sustainable world by providing high-frequency, low-cost transportation services to the Moon”.

Ispace believes the moon will support a population of 1,000 people by 2040, with 10,000 more visiting each year.

It plans a second mission, tentatively scheduled for next year, involving both a lunar landing and the deployment of its own rover.