Skip to main content

NASA lunar orbiter locates debris from Japan’s failed lander

NASA has released new images that appear to show the broken remains of Japan’s Hakuto lander, which crashed on the lunar surface in a failed mission last month.

Organized by Tokyo-based lunar exploration startup ispace, the Hakuto-R Mission 1 lunar lander launched in December 2022 with the aim of becoming the first privately funded spacecraft to land and operate on the lunar surface.

Recommended Videos

But following several months in space, an anomaly occurred in the final moments before the spacecraft’s scheduled touchdown. With all contact lost, how and exactly where the lander impacted the moon wasn’t clear, but images captured recently by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) appear to have shed new light on the case.

LRO captured 10 images around the planned landing site using its Narrow Angle Cameras, according to NASA. Comparing before-and-after images, a team was able to pick out what appear to be fragments of the failed Hakuto lander spread across a wide distance. NASA marked them in one of the images, shown below:

Possible fragments of ispace's lander, which crashed on the moon.
NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

“The image shows at least four prominent pieces of debris and several small changes,” NASA said.

It added that the crash site will be analyzed in greater detail over the coming months using additional LRO images that will be captured in different lighting and viewing geometries.

The main aim of ispace’s mission was to deploy two small rovers on the lunar surface, and more broadly to demonstrate its ability to successfully put a lander on the lunar surface.

Despite the disappointing end to the endeavor, ispace said it was able to acquire valuable data for the entire mission up until the very final moment, and will use the knowledge it gained to try again with a similar mission as part of its work to advance efforts by the private sector in space development.

NASA is spending several billion dollars on contracts with private firms to develop landers capable of bringing cargo to the lunar surface as part of its Artemis program.

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
February is ‘a month of bright planets,’ NASA says in new skywatching update
A night time sky on the Nokia G60.

The moon has “many engagements” with the planets in February, NASA said in its monthly update on what to look out for in the night sky.

Throughout February, so long as clear nights prevail, you’ll be able to see the moon in the night sky along with many of our solar system’s planets.

Read more
NASA orbiter captures one last image of retired InSight lander on Mars
This illustration shows NASA's InSight spacecraft with its instruments deployed on the Martian surface.

NASA's Insight lander spent four years on the surface of Mars, uncovering secrets of the planet's interior, but it eventually succumbed to the most martian of environmental threats: dust. Mars has periodic dust storms that can whip up into huge global events, lifting dust up into the air and then dumping it on everything in sight -- including solar panels. After years of accumulation, eventually the dust was so thick that Insight's solar panels could no longer generate enough power to keep it operational, and the mission officially came to an end in December 2022.

That wasn't quite the end of the story for InSight, though, as it is still being used for science to this day, albeit indirectly. Recently, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) caught a glimpse of InSight from orbit, capturing the lander's dusty surroundings and showing how even more dust had built up on it.

Read more
NASA’s Mars rover just emerged from Jezero Crater. So, what next?
Perseverance's view from the rim of Mars' Jezero Crater

NASA personnel are celebrating the news that its Perseverance rover has finally reached the top of the Mars’ Jezero Crater rim after a challenging climb that took three-and-a-half months to complete.

The six-wheeled rover ascended 1,640 feet (500 meters) and made stops along the way to conduct various science observations as it continues its search for signs of ancient microbial life on the red planet.

Read more