![]() ![]() The four astronauts NASA picked for the first crewed moon mission in 50 years PHOTOGRAPHER: Josh Valcarcel Josh Valcarcel/NASA SUBJECT: Official crew portrait for Artemis II, from left: NASA Astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, Canadian Space Agency Astronaut Jeremy Hansen. Japan’s Ispace is one of several companies that competed in the Google Lunar XPrize, which offered a $20 million reward to the company that could put a robotic rover on the moon, travel a couple thousand feet, and transmit data back to Earth. “It also carries a ‘Langmuir probe’ to sample the plasma environment prevailing just above the lunar surface.” The “Rashid rover is equipped with one high resolution camera on its front mast and another mounted on its rear, as well as a microscopic camera and thermal imaging camera,” ESA said. If successful, the 22-pound (10-kilogram) Rashid rover had been expected to emerge from the lunar lander and spend “most of the 14-day lunar daytime exploring the Atlas Crater on the northeast of the Moon,” according to the European Space Agency, which helped design the rover’s wheels. “Recognizing the possibility of an anomaly during the mission, the results will be weighed and evaluated against the criteria and incorporated into future missions already in development between now and 2025,” the company noted in a December 11 post. The lunar exploration company had been bracing for mishaps. Seen here is the lunar Earthrise during solar eclipse, captured by the lander-mounted camera at an altitude of about 100 km from the lunar surface. We’ve received another incredible photo from the camera onboard our Mission 1 lander! The company had shared mission updates on its Twitter account, including a recent photograph of Earth peeking out from behind the moon that was captured by the spacecraft as it traveled through lunar orbit. Japan’s Ispace had a different approach from prior lunar missions, attempting to land its spacecraft on the moon as a for-profit business rather than under the banner of a single country. The US remains the only country to have put humans on the moon. In history, only three countries have ever executed a controlled landing on the moon - the United States, the former Soviet Union and China. ![]() The lunar lander, called Hakuto-R, was carrying the Rashid rover - the first Arab-built lunar spacecraft, which was built by Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre in Dubai. He added that his team was able to gather data from the vehicle right up until the attempted landing, a “great achievement” that should help inform future Ispace missions. Our engineers continue to investigate the situation.” “We have to assume…that we could not complete the landing on the lunar surface. “We have not been able to confirm successful landing,” he said. ![]() About 20 minutes after the planned landing time, Ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada delivered an update. Minutes passed as the mission control team worked to regain contact with the vehicle after an expected communications blackout. Touchdown was expected to occur Tuesday at 12:40 p.m. Overall, the journey took the lander about 870,000 miles (1.4 million kilometers) through space. The spacecraft then made a three-month trek to enter orbit around the moon, which lies about 239,000 miles (383,000 kilometers) from Earth, using a low-energy trajectory. The lander, built by Japanese firm Ispace, launched atop a SpaceX rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on December 11. But flight controllers on the ground were not immediately able to regain contact, prompting the company to presume the spacecraft was lost. A Japanese lunar lander, carrying a rover developed in the United Arab Emirates, attempted to find its footing on the moon’s surface Tuesday - and potentially mark the world’s first lunar landing for a commercially developed spacecraft. ![]()
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