The Japanese “White Rabbit” probably crashed on the surface of the Moon

The Japanese space company on Wednesday lost contact with its probe just before its planned landing on the surface of the moon. In the statement of the leaders of the Japanese lunar project, it is said that, in all probability, the device was lost.

Communication with the probe was interrupted at the final stage of landing on the lunar surface, approximately at an altitude of 10 meters. At that time, the speed of the landing module was 25 kilometers per hour. Employees of the flight control center in Tokyo, frozen in front of the monitor screens, were anxiously waiting for at least some signal from the moon, but the long silence most likely meant failure. We must admit that we were unable to complete the landing on the lunar surface, said Takeshi Hakamada, the founder and director of the “ispace” company.

After some time, the flight commander told the correspondent of The Associated Press that he could not confirm the death of the lander and assumed that the engineering department would find out the causes of the problems in the next few hours.

In the case of a successful arrival on the moon, the Japanese company would become the first private space enterprise that managed to land the device on the surface of the natural satellite of the Earth. Khakamada promised to repeat the request. He reported that the next flight to the Moon is already being prepared and should take place next year, regardless of the current result.

Until now, only three states managed to successfully reach the Moon and land their devices on its surface – Russia, the USA and China. The Israeli apparatus, created by a non-profit company, tried to land in 2019, but crashed into the surface of the Earth’s satellite.

On board the Japanese device, with a diameter of about 2.5 meters, there was a small lunar rover made by the United Arab Emirates and a tiny Japanese robot designed for movement on the lunar dust surface.

The name of the Japanese probe Hakuto means “White Rabbit”. The device was supposed to land in the Atlas crater, in the northeastern part of the visible side of the Moon. The diameter of the crater is 87 kilometers, the depth is two kilometers.

Named Hakuto, Japanese for white, the spacecraft targeted the Atlas Crater in the northeastern part of the near side of the Moon, which is more than 50 miles (87 kilometers) in diameter and a little more than 1 mile (2 kilometers) deep. rabbit, the spacecraft had targeted Atlas crater in the northeastern section of the moon’s near side, more than 50 miles (87 kilometers) across and just over 1 mile (2 kilometers) deep.