Japanese startup ispace inc announced that their attempt to make the first private moon landing failed, as they lost contact with their Hakuto-R Mission 1 (M1) lander, leading them to assume that it most likely crashed on the lunar surface. This marks the second major setback for private space development in a week, following SpaceX’s Starship rocket’s spectacular explosion. A private firm has yet to succeed with a lunar landing, with only the United States, the former Soviet Union, and China successfully soft-landing spacecraft on the moon. Despite these challenges, Japan’s top government spokesperson affirmed that ispace’s efforts were significant to the development of a domestic space industry and encouraged them to persist. Japan aims to send Japanese astronauts to the moon by the late 2020s. ispace, which delivers payloads such as rovers to the moon and sells related data, made its debut on the Tokyo Stock Exchange two weeks ago and had doubled in value since then. The M1 lander completed eight out of 10 mission objectives in space, providing valuable data for the next landing attempt in 2024.
