The crash of a commercial spacecraft on the surface of the Moon this month was due to problems with the vehicle’s laser range finder (LRF), Japanese firm ispace has said.
As the Resilience lunar lander began its descent on 5 June, mission control suddenly lost all contact with the craft two minutes before it was scheduled for a soft touchdown.
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 by the following morning, ispace issued an update saying that mission controllers had determined that it was “unlikely that communication with the lander will be restored” and had decided to conclude the mission entirely.
After analysing the data from the landing sequence, the firm concluded that the LRF was “the most likely cause” for the hard landing as valid measurements from the instrument were significantly delayed. This meant the lander was unable to decelerate to...