A commercial spacecraft from Japanese firm ispace appears to have crashed on the surface of the Moon as it attempted to land.
The Resilience lunar lander began its descent last night just after 8pm UK time. But mission control lost all contact with the craft around two minutes before it was scheduled for a soft touchdown.
The Hakuto-R Mission 2 that sent the lander into orbit launched on January 15 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. It was intended to be a technology demonstration that could prove the viability of reliable transportation and data services on the Moon.
The proposed landing site for the mission was the far northern Mare Frigoris – a location chosen because it allows for continuous line-of-sight radio communication from Earth.
But this morning, ispace issued another update saying that mission controllers had determined that it was “unlikely that communication with the lander will be restored” and had therefore decided to conclude the mission entirely.
Detailing the landing process...