The UAE’s mission to the moon saw Japan’s iSpace lose contact with Rashid Rover on touchdown.
The UAE is aiming to become only the fourth country to successfully land on the moon after the Soviet Union, USA and China.
UAE moon-landing mission
The live stream of the Rashid Rover, on board Japan’s HAKUTO-R Mission 1 Lunar Lander, was suspended after seeming to show touch down at the estimated time.
A tense mission control team in Japan worked to make contact with the lunar lander while an expectant public looked on.
Following a short pause while scientists aimed to make contact with the Rashid Rover and Japan’s lunar lander, Japanese officials explained the mission control lost contact with the pioneering vehicles.
Ispace chief executive Takeshi Hakamada said: “At this moment, we have not been able to confirm successful landing on the lunar surface.
“Our engineers and mission control centre continue to investigate the current status of the lander. We have not been to confirm communication with the lander. We established communication until the end of the landing, however, now we lost communication.
“We have to assume that we could not complete the landing on the lunar surface.”
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The Rashid Rover blasted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida, USA, on December 11, 2022 inside a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
Before Tuesday’s landing attempt the Rashid Rover was orbiting the Moon at an altitude of about 100 km at the perilune (periapsis) and about 2,300 km at the apolune (apoapsis).
The points in the orbit that is closest to the centre of the moon are called perilune, and the farthest is known as apolune.
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