NASA spacecraft views Japan's lost HAKUTO-R Mission 1 lander’s location on the Moon

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has successfully imaged the impact site of the ill-fated ispace's HAKUTO-R Mission 1 lunar lander. The privately funded spacecraft, which encountered an anomaly during its landing attempt on April 26, has now been located and visually documented by the LRO camera.

The HAKUTO-R Mission 1 lunar lander was launched on December 11, 2022, with the ambitious goal of touching down on the lunar surface. After a lengthy several-month journey, the spacecraft initiated its controlled descent towards the Moon, aiming to land near the Atlas crater. However, the ispace team announced the following day that an unexpected anomaly had occurred, due to which the lander failed to make a safe touchdown on the lunar surface.

On April 26, 2023, the LRO's Narrow Angle Cameras captured a series of images covering a significant area around the landing site, measuring approximately 40 km by 45 km (about 25 miles by 28 miles).

Utilizing an image captured ahead of the spacecraft's landing attempt as a reference, the LRO Camera science team diligently examined the images to locate any signs of the lander. During their analysis, they noticed an unusual surface change in close proximity to the projected landing site. The image revealed the presence of at least four prominent debris pieces and several smaller changes.

Additional observations will enable a more comprehensive analysis of the impact site and potentially shed light on the nature and extent of the lander's damage.

In a tweet on Tuesday, ispace said that has been conducting a thorough analysis of the flight data received during M1's operation and will share the findings on May 26.

Our Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter camera has imaged the impact site of the ispace HAKUTO-R Lander, which experienced an anomaly on April 26 during its landing attempt. https://t.co/GvggIeEZt1 pic.twitter.com/EBVlOUZ3FN

— NASA Moon (@NASAMoon) May 23, 2023

NASA's LRO, a robotic spacecraft orbiting the Moon, has been capturing high-resolution images of the lunar surface for over a decade.