A Japanese lunar lander crashed last month because it ran out of fuel. This fuel was used to slow the engines. Without “brakes”, the vehicle crashed from a height of almost 5 km. That’s why he lost. The developer of the lunar probe, the Japanese company ispace, reported this after research.
It was supposed to be the first commercial landing on the moon. Mission 1 of Project Hakuto-R started in December. In March, the vehicle entered lunar orbit, at an altitude of about 100 km. The landing began on April 26th. It went well at first, ispace says, the craft got off and slowed. At an altitude of 5 kilometers, the probe’s speed was approximately 3.6 kilometers per hour when it went wrong.
Also listen | Oceans on Mars and money for a second lunar lander
The cause of the probe running out of fuel could be an altimeter error. During its descent, the probe flew over the rim of a crater. The software did not take this into account and wrongly assumed that the sensor used to measure altitude was faulty.
crater
And ispace says the next trips to the moon will continue as normal. The program will be modified to prevent recurrence.
A few days ago, NASA shared images of a small crater that could have been caused by the crash of the Japanese lander.
