Japanese company ispace plans to launch two more missions to land on the Moon in 2027, after its Resilience lander crashed into the lunar surface on Friday.
The Tokyo company confirmed that it lost communication with the lander moments before it was set to touch down. Engineers concluded that the spacecraft had a hard landing because of problems with a sensor responsible for measuring its distance from the surface.
Ispace’s US subsidiary is working on a larger landing vehicle, called Apex 1.0, which will be launched in 2027. Engineers in Japan are also working on a fourth mission, scheduled for the same year.
“Given that there is currently no prospect of a successful lunar landing, our top priority is to swiftly analyse the telemetry data we have obtained thus far and work diligently to identify the cause,” ispace founder Takeshi Hakamada said.
What went wrong?
On Friday, ispace's Mission 2 lander began its descent towards the lunar surface from an altitude of about 100km, firing its main engine as planned.
The spacecraft was confirmed to be nearly vertical, but then telemetry data was lost.
Engineers at the mission control centre in Tokyo did not receive confirmation of a safe landing.
An initial review found that the laser rangefinder, which tells the spacecraft how far it is from the ground, struggled to obtain valid readings during descent.
Without accurate distance measurements, the lander was unable to slow down, causing it to crash.
Ispace’s first landing vehicle suffered a similar fate in 2023, when a miscalculation in altitude estimation caused the spacecraft to crash into the Moon. It was carrying payloads from several countries, including the UAE's Rashid rover.
Future plans
The company will soon turn its attention to its two missions in 2027. Its Mission 3 vehicle will feature an upgraded lander with greater payload capacity and advanced guidance systems. The fourth mission will involve a lander called the Series 3.
Companies including ispace are carrying out lunar missions to create a business of transport services.
In January last year, US company Astrobotic launched its Peregrine lander, but a propellant leak scuppered the mission. The following month, Intuitive Machines said its Odysseus lander touched down on the Moon, before tipping over.
The company followed up with its Athena lander, which also landed on its side on the lunar surface.
In March this year, Texas-based Firefly Aerospace became the first company to report a successful private lunar mission. Its Blue Ghost lander operated on the surface of the Moon for two weeks.
Anna Hazlett, founder of UAE-based space advisory firm AzurX, said commercial access to the Moon could transform the economics of lunar missions.
“A commercial lunar transport service lowers the barrier to entry for space agencies and research institutions,” she told The National. “It’s a shift from bespoke, typically government-led missions to scalable lunar logistics, much like what SpaceX did for low-Earth orbit.”
The push to reach the lunar surface is also expected to benefit researchers. “If I want to carry out a scientific experiment on the Moon, I will have to design the entire mission, propose it to a space agency, and the launch will be in about a decade from conception,” said Dr Dimitra Atri, an astrophysicist at New York University Abu Dhabi.
“In the case of private companies, I only need to focus on building my experiment and the company will deliver the payload to the Moon rather quickly.”
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Sui Dhaaga: Made in India
Director: Sharat Katariya
Starring: Varun Dhawan, Anushka Sharma, Raghubir Yadav
3.5/5
Learn more about Qasr Al Hosn
In 2013, The National's History Project went beyond the walls to see what life was like living in Abu Dhabi's fabled fort:
Jeff Buckley: From Hallelujah To The Last Goodbye
By Dave Lory with Jim Irvin
Electric scooters: some rules to remember
- Riders must be 14-years-old or over
- Wear a protective helmet
- Park the electric scooter in designated parking lots (if any)
- Do not leave electric scooter in locations that obstruct traffic or pedestrians
- Solo riders only, no passengers allowed
- Do not drive outside designated lanes
Key changes
Commission caps
For life insurance products with a savings component, Peter Hodgins of Clyde & Co said different caps apply to the saving and protection elements:
• For the saving component, a cap of 4.5 per cent of the annualised premium per year (which may not exceed 90 per cent of the annualised premium over the policy term).
• On the protection component, there is a cap of 10 per cent of the annualised premium per year (which may not exceed 160 per cent of the annualised premium over the policy term).
• Indemnity commission, the amount of commission that can be advanced to a product salesperson, can be 50 per cent of the annualised premium for the first year or 50 per cent of the total commissions on the policy calculated.
• The remaining commission after deduction of the indemnity commission is paid equally over the premium payment term.
• For pure protection products, which only offer a life insurance component, the maximum commission will be 10 per cent of the annualised premium multiplied by the length of the policy in years.
Disclosure
Customers must now be provided with a full illustration of the product they are buying to ensure they understand the potential returns on savings products as well as the effects of any charges. There is also a “free-look” period of 30 days, where insurers must provide a full refund if the buyer wishes to cancel the policy.
“The illustration should provide for at least two scenarios to illustrate the performance of the product,” said Mr Hodgins. “All illustrations are required to be signed by the customer.”
Another illustration must outline surrender charges to ensure they understand the costs of exiting a fixed-term product early.
Illustrations must also be kept updatedand insurers must provide information on the top five investment funds available annually, including at least five years' performance data.
“This may be segregated based on the risk appetite of the customer (in which case, the top five funds for each segment must be provided),” said Mr Hodgins.
Product providers must also disclose the ratio of protection benefit to savings benefits. If a protection benefit ratio is less than 10 per cent "the product must carry a warning stating that it has limited or no protection benefit" Mr Hodgins added.
Libya's Gold
UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.
Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.
Company%20profile
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SUZUME
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'Downton Abbey: A New Era'
Director: Simon Curtis
Cast: Hugh Bonneville, Elizabeth McGovern, Maggie Smith, Michelle Dockery, Laura Carmichael, Jim Carter and Phyllis Logan
Rating: 4/5
