Second ispace craft has probably crash-landed on Moon

A Japanese spacecraft has probably crashed on the Moon, the second failed landing attempt for Tokyo-based private firm ispace. The HAKUTO-R Mission 2 (M2) lander — also called Resilience — began its landing sequence from a 100-kilometre-altitude orbit at 3.13am local time on 5 June. The craft was due to land near the centre of Mare Frigoris (Sea of Cold) at 4.17am. The ispace team said at a press conference that it lost contact with M2 when the craft was 192 metres above the Moon’s surface and descending faster than expected. An attempt to reboot M2 was also unsuccessful. M2 didn't receive measurements of the distance between itself and the lunar surface in time to slow down and reach its correct landing speed, the team said. “It eventually slowed down, but not softly enough,” says Clive Neal, who studies the Moon at the University of Notre Dame in Indianapolis, US. He speculates that the failure was probably caused by a systems issue that wasn’t identified and addressed during the ... Read full article.