That's the plan, at least. The Hakuto-R Mission 1 probe, which I've covered here regularly, is set to attempt to land Tuesday, April 25 at 12:40 PM Eastern, 1640 UTC. If the probe lands successfully, this will be the first private spacecraft to land on the moon.
The primary landing site is Atlas Crater, located at the southeastern outer edge of Mare Frigoris ("Sea of Cold"), according to earlier statements from the company.
"Should conditions change, there are three alternative landing sites and depending on the site, the landing date may change. Alternative landing dates, depending on the operational status, are April 26, May 1 and May 3, 2023," ispace officials wrote on April 12.
The mission will be covered live on
YouTube by ispace, with coverage going live at 11:00 AM ET, 1500 UTC.
Screen capture of the channel at the moment.
When this mission was launched by SpaceX in December, I called it the
Multinational Moon Mission. Hakuto-R is carrying the Rashid lunar rover from the United Arab
Emirates space agency, along with an artificial intelligence system from
Canadian company Mission Control and a multi-camera imaging system by Canadian
company Canadensys Aerospace.
This isn't the first attempt at a moon landing by a private company. The
first was a mission SpaceX sent to the moon in 2019 for a private company, the
Israeli corporation SpaceIL. The payload was their
Beresheet
Moon lander. (Beresheet is Hebrew for "In the Beginning."); Beresheet failed a minute or two
before touchdown, but the attempt was still a historic step for commercial
spaceflight.
Clearly, this is a big step for ispace and Hakuto-R. Considering there have been times when some thought the mission was about to be lost, they're at a remarkable point. ispace is planning second and third moon missions no earlier than 2024 and 2025, respectively.
Update 4/25/13 at 3:15 PM ET: Quote from Ars Technica's Eric Berger:
The Japanese company ispace maintained communication with its Hakuto-R spacecraft until the final moments before was supposed to land on the Moon, the company's founder, Takeshi Hakamada, said Tuesday. His comments came about 25 minutes after the company's lander was due to make a soft touchdown on the lunar surface. Then, they lost contact. As a result, it is highly likely the lander crashed into the Moon.
"We have to assume that we did not complete the landing on the lunar surface," Hakamada said on the company's webcast, his voice filled with emotion. "We will keep going, never quit in our quest."
Listening to his presentation, Hakamada gave me the impression they had contact with the probe until it landed and then lost contact. This announcement doesn't have that implication. That aside, ispace is going to keep trying to contact the lander in the hope that it has simply malfunctioned in some way. They haven't given up at this point.
SpaceIL is planning Beresheet 2 soon. Again, launched by SpaceX.
ReplyDeleteShould conditions change, there are three alternative landing sites .
ReplyDeleteThey worried about the weather?
They're looking to land near the south pole, and since it's upside down in a telescope, that looks like the north pole. That means it's not hurricane season, yet, here in the northern hemisphere and it's winding down in the southern hemisphere, so they should probably be able to land without needing the alternative sites.
DeleteAs of 10:00 PDT, no communications from the lander. Still searching for a signal.
ReplyDelete4/25/23
At 10:20 they gave up. Maybe LRO can image the landing site.
ReplyDeleteIf I understood the main speaker at the end properly, they had radio contact briefly after landing. It makes me wonder if something goofy happened, like they landed on something that's not level and it fell over?
DeleteOr a really, REALLY big bounce.
DeleteYour ears must be better, SiG, I didn't hear that mentioned - just that they don't have any comms with the craft.