The moon-wrapped spacecraft belonging to NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) took photos of the resilience of the moon that has ruined Japan’s ruined moon surface, following a devastating “hard landing” earlier this month. Some of the first visually confirmed images of the spaceship’s fate show fragments scattered throughout the surrounding area.
The resilient lunar lander, created and operated by Japanese company ispace, was scheduled to land on June 5th in the northern hemisphere mares Frigolith, or “cold sea” areas. Lander painted the first moon circle in Europe, as well as the first moon rover in Europe.
However, the operator lost contact with resilience about 100 seconds before the scheduled touchdown. He then tore the spacecraft and experienced a “hard landing” where he likely lost all his payload.
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On June 11, NASA’s Moon Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) snapped the first satellite photo of the ruined Lander. Comparing the new image with photos taken before the crash (see above) reveals that the impact remains dark stains on the moon. According to the LRO website, the Mark is probably a regolith (a layer of dust and rock that covers the lunar rock).
On June 16th, Isro’s Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter took additional photos of the crash site, showing the area in more detail (see below). Subsequent analysis of the photos revealed debris scattered around the crash site. Astronomy enthusiast Shanmuga Subramanian has identified at least 12 different debris and shared images of them on social platform X. However, there were no indications as to how far these works were.
Related: “Everything has changed since Apollo”: Why landing on the moon is still very difficult
Telemetry data from the last moments of Resilience suggests that Lander’s laser rangefinder experienced delays, measuring the distance of the probe to the Lunar Surface, the sister site of Live Science, previously reported by Live Science’s sister site Space.com. “As a result, Lander was unable to slow down enough to reach the speed required for a planned lunar landing,” an ISPACE official wrote at the time. At a press conference on Tuesday (June 24th), Ispace finally confirmed that the laser rangefinder is a barrier.
Resilience was the second of Ispace’s Hakuto-R Landers about to land on the moon. Its predecessor may have also crashed in April 2023 after the company lost contact in the lunar orbit.
However, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Slim Lander (or “Moon Sniper”) landed normally on the moon in January 2024 and continued to operate, despite accidentally landing upside down.
Other lunar landing aircraft
Over the past few years, the number of spacecraft attempting to land on the moon has increased sharply.
US companies have already tried to land two moons this year. First, on March 2nd, Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost landed smoothly on the moon. Second, on March 7th, the intuitive machine’s IM-2 probe landed on that side, and died 12 hours later.
In February 2024, the intuitive machine Odysseus Lander became the first American spacecraft to land on the moon for the first time in over 50 years, but on its side.
In August 2023, ISRO successfully landed India’s first lunar landing aircraft, Chandrayaan-3, near the Antarctic of the Moon. The spacecraft later detected the first “Moon Quake” in decades before closing 12 days later.
China’s Chang’e 6 Lander successfully landed on the other side of the moon in June 2024, then brought the moon samples back to Earth.
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