Japanese moon mission “Resilience” has failed

Tokyo. The Japanese space company ispace has failed in its second lunar mission. The Tokyo-based company admitted this on Friday, just hours after contact with the lunar module was lost. Ground control had attempted to continue communicating with the lander but ultimately declared the mission over. The lander presumably crashed during its hour-long approach. ispace founder Takeshi Hakamada said on Friday that he apologized to everyone involved in the mission: "We must take what happened seriously."

The plan was for the 2.30 meter long “Resilience” to send images to Earth within a few hours and place a rover on the lunar surface.

Two years ago, the company's first lunar flight ended in a crash landing. The follow-up mission to the lander, "Resilience," carries a rover with a scoop for collecting lunar dust, as well as a red toy house designed by a Swedish artist, which will be placed on the lunar surface.

Resilience launched its long journey from Florida in January and reached lunar orbit last month. The SpaceX rocket shared its lunar module with Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost, which reached the moon faster and became the first private company to successfully land there in March.

RND/AP