US aerospace agency NASA has published a series of images showing what do they look like Wreckage of the Japanese Hakuto-R probe Which would have crashed on the Moon while trying to do a pioneer landing.
Images taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) probe of the area where the device was to land, show at least four objects on the surface The moon is believed to be part of the Japanese lander.
japanese module Approx 2.3m high and 2.6m long iSpace was launched on December 11, 2022, within the framework of the company’s Hakuto-1 Mission 1, which aspires to be the world’s first private mission to land on the Moon.
After a journey of several months, the device began a controlled descent to land near the Atlas Crater of Earth’s natural satellite, an operation that should have ended on April 25, Japanese time, as planned by the firm. The company lost contact with the probe during descent due to some “anomaly”. And a day later they declared the mission a failure.
The same NASA’s LRO investigation on 26 April took ten pictures around the desired area Using images taken prior to the landing and attempted landing on the Moon, the team began searching for the device, according to a statement published on its website today.
Team “Identified an unusual surface change near the landing site Specifically, there are “four major pieces of debris and several minor changes” on the surface, he detailed.
Through their analyses, they believe that these variations can be “a small crater or part of the lander’s body“The Japanese, however they” plan to further analyze the site through additional observations under different lighting conditions and viewing angles.
Established in 2010, iSpace defines itself as a “global” company with a vision to “expand the planet”. and “expand the future” through concrete actions such as offering high-frequency, low-cost transportation services between Earth and the Moon. The firm has offices in Japan, Luxembourg and the United States, and joint projects with NASA and the European Space Agency.
