Mission Summary
Hakuto-R Mission 1 was the first attempt by a Japanese company to land on the Moon, and one of the first commercial lunar landing tries by any private firm. Built by the Tokyo company ispace, the lander launched on December 11, 2022 and carried several payloads for paying customers, among them the United Arab Emirates’ small Rashid rover.
After a long, low-energy cruise, the lander reached lunar orbit and began its descent on April 25, 2023. It completed nearly the entire braking sequence, slowing almost to a stop several kilometers above the surface, before an onboard error in judging its altitude left it convinced it had already landed. With its propellant exhausted, the lander fell the remaining distance and crashed.
The loss ended the mission short of a soft landing, but ispace had reached lunar orbit and returned data through most of the descent, milestones it carried into its follow-on flights. The company traced the cause of the failure and folded the fixes into its later missions.
Sources and notes can be found on the Sources page.
