Space industry takes note as iSpace’s moon landing goes awry

On April 25th, 2023, iSpace, a Japanese lunar exploration startup, attempted to make history with a landing on the moon. However, the mission was met with failure and ended in a crash. The company’s lunar lander, called the Hakuto-R, was meant to deliver a payload of equipment to the moon’s surface, including a rover that would have been able to collect data and images of the lunar landscape.

The landing attempt was highly anticipated and had the potential to make iSpace the first private company to successfully deliver cargo to the moon. However, things did not go as planned. The Hakuto-R’s engines failed to slow down the spacecraft’s descent as it approached the surface, causing it to crash into the moon’s surface.

The mission’s failure was a blow to iSpace’s hopes of becoming a major player in the growing space industry. The company had raised over $90 million from investors, including the Japanese government, and had been working on developing its lunar lander technology for years.

According to Takeshi Hakamada, CEO, iSpace, the company is currently investigating what went wrong with the landing attempt. In a statement released after the crash, Hakamada said, “We are deeply disappointed that we were not able to achieve a successful landing on this mission. We will continue to analyze the data and learn from this experience as we move forward.”

The failure of the iSpace mission is a reminder of the risks involved in space exploration and the challenges that private companies face when attempting to enter the industry. While iSpace’s mission was not the first to fail, it highlights the importance of perseverance and the need to learn from mistakes in order to make progress in space exploration.

Despite the setback, iSpace remains committed to its mission of developing lunar exploration technology and continuing its efforts to reach the moon. The company plans to launch another mission in the near future and hopes to achieve success in its next attempt.

“Although we do not expect to complete the lunar landing at this time, we believe that we have fully accomplished the significance of this mission, having acquired a great deal of data and experience by being able to execute the landing phase. What is important is to feed this knowledge and learning back to Mission 2 and beyond so that we can make the most of this experience,” said Takeshi Hakamada, Founder and CEO of ispace. “To this end, we are already developing Mission 2 and Mission 3 concurrently and have prepared a foundation that can maintain this continuity.

Read more on Astrolab partners with SpaceX to launch Flex Rover to the moon in 2026