The Japanese company that sent the module to the moon released the reasons why it fell

A month ago, on April 25, the Japanese company Space A convertible spacecraft was getting ready to make history by sending it into space First private company to land on the moon. And, so far, this has only been achieved by governments Russia, America And China.

However, things were not so easy for the Japanese company, which saw its smile fade when it lost contact with the mission just hours after launch and minutes before landing on the moon.

At first, the company’s experts considered the study StarsIt is still too late to determine what happened. But, this Friday, they are already in a position to announce where the fault lies.

After analyzing and recapitulating the sequence of events, the directors of the space agency Vol Hakuto-R Mission 1 completed its planned landing sequence Perfect recession -about 3.2 km/h-, but was still far from the surface -about 4.8 kilometers-.

That is why, running out of fuel, in a hasty attempt to land on the lunar surface, went into free fall And Atlas collided with crater. According to experts, this was one of the reasons Software error and A Change of location At the last minute.

Originally, the spacecraft was supposed to land on the flat Lagus Somniorum plain, but in December it was decided to move the site to the Atlas Crater.

As a result, the crater’s sudden rock would have confused the module’s software and the altitude it was traveling at, so the spacecraft entered free fall from an altitude of less than 5 kilometers. After some time, crashed into the lunar surface.

Anyway, The machineHe Altimeter and others Hardware integrated into the engine They worked perfectlyExperts added, therefore, the general design of the ship is solid and only some details of the created system remain to be adjusted. Draper Laboratory, Cambridge, In Massachusetts.

“It’s not a hardware failure. We don’t need to change that feature,” said ispace CTO Ryo Ujie.

Despite the failure of this experiment, the company’s CEO and founder, Takeshi HakamadaThey promised that they will not give up and will try to implement Another moon landing The learning and subjects of this test will be almost the same next year. They also expect a The third pitch with a large ship 2025.

“We have a clear picture of how to improve our future missions,” he said confidently, adding that thanks to the insurance the spacecraft received, the financial implications of failures on the company are minimal.

(With information from AP)

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