2023-04-25 19:14:08
The first private mission to the Moon it has lost connection with its mother planet. After several months of space travel and maneuvers, the Japanese Ispace probe Hakaruto-R seems to have successfully entered the lunar atmosphere but It is not very clear what happened to her. The mission control center has lost contact with the spacecraft just as it touched down on the dusty ground of the Earth satellite. For now The causes of what happened are unknown.. It is not clear if it is a connection problem or if it is the ship that has been destroyed during the descent. “We are still studying what happened,” a company spokesman announced during a press appearance. “What we learned in this mission will help us to improve for the following“, has added.
“What we learned in this mission will help us improve for the next ones”
the japanese probe It was supposed to land this Tuesday around 6:15 p.m. (Spanish peninsular time) in the Atlas crater, a hitherto unexplored point of lunar geography. His most immediate objective was transport two small robots on the lunar soil. The first, barely eight centimeters in diameter and 250 grams in weight, had been made by the Japanese Space Agency and the toy company Takara Tomy. The second, weighing ten kilograms, had been created by Arab Emirates. Right now the status of these two instruments on board the Japanese probe is also unknown. The state of health of these robots depends on how Hakaruto-R is doing.
Beyond this Tuesday’s mission, the Japanese company responsible for this project hoped to usher in a “new era of the space economy”. “The Moon could revolutionize from the construction of buildings and the extraction of energy to agriculture, medicine and tourism,” they stated from the Asian company during the presentation of this space program. In this sense, the Japanese company planned to offer the possibility of transport scientific missions requiring microgravity conditions up to artistic, educational or commercial projects who wanted to walk on the lunar soil.
the japanese mission took off just over four months ago from SpaceX’s Texas space center aboard a Falcon 9 rocket. The assembly of this mission had relied on different players in the aerospace industry. The probe – which was barely the size of a refrigerator – had been designed by the Japanese company Ispace, included tools from the American laboratory Draper and had been assembled by the European company Ariane. The European Space Agency (ESA), for its part, was in charge of maintaining communication between the probe and the control center in Tokyo.
future of career
Related news
The Historia de Hakaruto-R It does not surprise so much for the mission itself but for who stars in it. Until now, all large missions to the Moon, as well as to other bodies in our cosmic neighborhood, were led by the most powerful space agencies on the planet. But in the last decade something has changed. Now, beyond government agencies, more and more private companies want to lead extraterrestrial projects and keep a ‘piece of the cake’ from space exploration. In the future, there are those who argue that It will also be private companies that will be able to lead the long-range space missions.
A few days ago, without going any further, we were able to witness another example of the space race of companies in the sector. The private company SpaceX, founded by South African tycoon Elon Musk, also tried unsuccessfully to launch the most powerful rocket in history. He vehicle disintegrated just a few minutess after takeoff due to a technical failure whose details are still unknown. In this case, Starship also aspired to inaugurate a new era of missions to the Moon, Mars and, who knows, beyond. Musk, for his part, also argued that they would do everything possible to learn from that failed launch and prepare for a new takeoff.
#private #probe #Moon #loses #connection #Earth