On April 25th, a Japanese firm, Ispace, announced that its Hakuto-R Mission 1 crashed on the moon. The mission was supposed to lead to Ispace being the first private firm to land a spacecraft on the moon’s surface. The Hakuto-R ship launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on December 11th, 2022. It spent 4 months traveling, with a plan to land on the Atlas crater on the moon’s nearside. All communication with Earth was cut off before the landing. While the spacecraft descended its speed rapidly increased, this may have been caused by the engines shutting down which led to the crash.
