The failed mission comes two years after the Japanese start-up’s first moonshot ended in a crash landing.
A Japanese-made private lunar lander has crashed while attempting to touch down on the moon, with its makers officially declaring the mission a failure.
Tokyo-based company ispace said on Friday that its lander, named Resilience, dropped out of lunar orbit as planned and that the mission appeared to be going well.
But flight controllers lost contact with Resilience, which was carrying a mini rover, moments before its scheduled touchdown on the surface of the moon following an hourlong descent. Ground support was met with silence as they attempted to regain contact with the lander and after several hours declared the mission a failure.
The company’s livestream of the attempted landing then came to an abrupt end.
