According to Japan-based company ispace, the resilience rover left lunar orbit as planned and everything initially went smoothly.
However, ground controllers lost contact with Resilience just moments before the expected landfall, after a 1-hour journey to the top. All efforts to restore contact failed and a few hours later, the mission was declared unsuccessful.
The company's live broadcast of the landing process also ended abruptly.
We must seriously learn from what has happened, said Takeshi Hakamada, CEO and founder of ispace, and apologized to all those who have contributed to the mission.
The 2.3m high Resilience ship targeted the lunar top - a flat, little rock area in Mare Frigoris (Cold Sea) - to land.
Resilience is expected to be transmitted within hours of landfall, before the European-made autonomous vehicle - called Tenacious - is released onto the surface of the Moon this weekend. The vehicle is made of carbon fiber reinforced plastic materials, equipped with high-altitude cameras, and will survey the area and collect soil samples for NASA.
Notably, this is the second time the Japanese startup has failed to make a soft landing on the surface of the Moon, after its first flight two years ago also ended in a collision.
The first mission, Hakuto-R mission 1, was launched in December 2022, and approached the moon's orbit but fell freely during landing due to a technical failure.
With this second failure, the Japanese businessman's dream is being questioned, while the next landing ship of ispace is expected to launch in 2027 with the participation of NASA.
Before the latest mission failed, ispace's CFO, Jumpei Nozaki, pledged that the company would continue to pursue lunar ambitions regardless of the outcome.
However, Jeremy fix, chief engineer of the US branch of ispace, warned that the company does not have endless financial resources and cannot endure more consecutive failures.
Meanwhile, the leader of ispace said that the cost of this mission is lower than the first time - which exceeded 100 million USD - but declined to disclose specific figures.
