Japan’s ispace assumes failure in bid to make first commercial moon landing

Japanese startup ispace 9348.T assumed failure in its attempt to make the first private moon landing on Tuesday as engineers struggled to regain contact with the company’s Hakuto-R Mission 1 (M1) lander long after it was due for a lunar touchdown.

“We lost the communication, so we have to assume that we could not complete the landing on the lunar surface,” ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada said on a company live stream, as mission control engineers in Tokyo continued to try regaining contact with the lander.

The M1 lander appeared set to touch down around 12:40 p.m. Eastern time (1640 GMT Tuesday) after coming as close as 295 feet from the lunar surface, a live animation of the lander’s telemtry showed.

The spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a SpaceX rocket in December and has completed several mission objectives leading up to its landing attempt.