Japanese lunar exploration firm ispace tried to land its first cargo mission on the moon on Tuesday, however misplaced communication with the spacecraft and has deemed the try unsuccessful, CEO Takeshi Hakamada mentioned.

“We’ve not been capable of verify a profitable touchdown on the lunar floor,” Hakamada mentioned, talking from Tokyo, Japan.

“We’re very pleased with the truth that we now have achieved many issues throughout this Mission 1,” Hakamada added. “We’ll preserve going — by no means stop the lunar quest.”

The Tokyo-based firm’s Mission 1 lunar lander was aiming to softly contact down round 12:40 p.m. ET within the Atlas Crater, which is within the northeastern sector of the moon. The corporate’s uncrewed mission carried scientific analysis and different payloads. There have been no folks on board.

The touchdown would have made ispace the primary personal entity to finish the feat. However the firm misplaced communication with the lander at “the very finish” of the touchdown try, Hakamada famous, and was not capable of re-establish connection. The corporate’s workforce is investigating the state of affairs.

“We’ve to imagine that we couldn’t full the touchdown on the lunar floor,” Hakamada mentioned.

Based greater than a decade in the past, ispace originated as a workforce competing for the Google Lunar Xprize below the identify Hakuto – after a mythological Japanese white rabbit. After the Xprize competitors was canceled, ispace pivoted and expanded its objectives, with Hakamada aiming to create “an economically viable ecosystem” across the moon, he mentioned in a current interview.

The corporate has grown steadily because it labored towards this primary mission, with over 200 workers around the globe – together with about 50 at its U.S. subsidiary in Denver. Moreover, ispace has steadily raised funds from all kinds of buyers, bringing in $237 million to this point by means of a combination of fairness and debt. The buyers of ispace embrace the Growth Financial institution of Japan, Suzuki Motor, Japan Airways and Airbus Ventures.

The ispace Mission 1 lander was carrying small rovers and payloads for quite a few authorities businesses and corporations – together with from the U.S., Canada, Japan and the United Arab Emirates.

Earlier than the launch, ispace outlined 10 milestones for the mission. The corporate had accomplished eight milestones previous to Tuesday, with the ninth representing a profitable soft-landing on the floor and the tenth representing the institution of secure communications with the Earth, as properly regular energy provide, after the touchdown.

The milestones display the complexity and issue of ispace’s mission, because it goals to finish a feat beforehand achieved solely by world superpowers. A earlier personal lunar mission, flown by Israeli nonprofit SpaceIL and in addition born out of the Google Lunar Xprize, crashed into the floor throughout an tried touchdown in April 2019.

The corporate hoped for this to be the primary of a number of missions to the moon. Final yr ispace received a $73 million NASA contract as a part of a workforce led by Massachusetts-based Draper to fly cargo to the moon’s floor in 2025 below the Industrial Lunar Payload Providers (CLPS) program.

Correction: This story has been up to date to right that ispace had accomplished eight objectives related to its lunar mission previous to an try to land cargo on the floor of the moon Tuesday. An earlier model of this story misstated the objectives and the corporate’s progress.