Moon crash site found! NASA orbiter spots grave of private Japanese lander (photos)

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Images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter appear to show separate chunks of debris.

The Hakuto-R private Japanese moon lander’s impact site, as seen by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter on April 26, 2023, the day after the attempted touchdown. (Image credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University)

A NASA lunar orbiter has spotted the final resting place of a private Japanese moon lander that failed in its touchdown attempt last month.

The Hakuto-R lander, also carrying a small rover for the United Arab Emirates, made its landing attempt on April 25, aiming to set down in Atlas Crater. However, communications with the lander were lost moments before the expected landing. The ispace team behind the lander later confirmed that the lander did not safely touch down on the surface. 

Now the site of the apparent crash has been discovered in images taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). 

Related: Private Japanese lander sets distance record on its way to the moon

Before and after comparison of the impact site of the private Japanese Hakuto-R moon lander, which attempted to touch down on April 25, 2023. Arrow A points to a prominent surface change with higher reflectance in the upper left and lower reflectance in the lower right (opposite of nearby surface rocks along the right side of the frame). Arrows B-D point to other changes around the impact site. (Image credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University)

On April 26, LRO acquired 10 images around the landing site with its Narrow Angle Cameras (NACs), and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) science team set about searching for the lost lander. 

Images published by the LROC team on Tuesday (May 23) show at least four prominent pieces of debris and several small changes on the lunar surface at 47.581 degrees north latitude and 44.094 degrees east longitude, according to a team statement.

"The central feature in the image above shows several bright pixels in the upper left and several dark pixels in the lower right. This is the opposite of nearby boulders, suggesting this could be a small crater or different parts of the lander body," the statement reads. 

"This site will be analyzed more over the coming months as LROC has the opportunity to reimage the site under various lighting and viewing geometries."

Lunar Earthrise is captured by the ispace Hakuto-R mission during the solar eclipse of April 20. (Image credit: ispace)
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LRO has also imaged the sites of earlier failed landing attempts, including the 2019 try by the Israeli Beresheet spacecraft.

If successful, Tokyo-based company ispace's Hakuto-R would have become the first private spacecraft, and the first Japanese-built vehicle, to land softly on the moon.

Despite the failure, ispace is already working to get back to the moon and stick the landing. The company is working on its second and third moon missions, targeting launches in 2024 and 2025, respectively. 

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.

Andrew Jones
Andrew Jones
Contributing Writer

Andrew is a freelance space journalist with a focus on reporting on China's rapidly growing space sector. He began writing for Space.com in 2019 and writes for SpaceNews, IEEE Spectrum, National Geographic, Sky & Telescope, New Scientist and others. Andrew first caught the space bug when, as a youngster, he saw Voyager images of other worlds in our solar system for the first time. Away from space, Andrew enjoys trail running in the forests of Finland. You can follow him on Twitter @AJ_FI.

18 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Sparky64
    Not great pictures to compare from in the gif. One is a sharp image and the other is a heavily blurred image. And where the arrows are pointing looks like there might be something there in the heavily blurred image just a lot harder to see because it is so heavily blurred. At least they could have used two sharper images for the comparison. But they used a blurred picture for "Before" and a sharp image for "After". Come on NASA you have to do better than that, it is not like they sent a technician out to the LRO to change out the cameras. Same cameras two way different quality images.
    Reply
  • billslugg
    Same orbiter, different cameras. "Before" picture was archival LROC wide angle and "after" is Narrow Angle Cameras (NACs).

    "LROC consists of two Narrow Angle Cameras (NACs) that are designed to provide 0.5 meter-scale panchromatic images over a 5 km swath, and a Wide Angle Camera (WAC) that provides images at a scale of 100 meters/pixel in seven color bands over a 60 km swath. "

    http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/about
    Reply
  • bolide
    How could you ever expect to confirm the presence (or absence) of the remains of a small spacecraft, with a resolution of 100 meters/pixel?
    Reply
  • Sparky64
    billslugg said:
    Same orbiter, different cameras. "Before" picture was archival LROC wide angle and "after" is Narrow Angle Cameras (NACs).

    "LROC consists of two Narrow Angle Cameras (NACs) that are designed to provide 0.5 meter-scale panchromatic images over a 5 km swath, and a Wide Angle Camera (WAC) that provides images at a scale of 100 meters/pixel in seven color bands over a 60 km swath. "

    http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/about
    That has got to be the worst copout excuse anyone has ever given. This is deliberate. You go into the archives and you will find crystal clear images but somehow they pulled a low quality image for this example? Well isn't that just convenient. Why do people want to create more conspiracies? I do not doubt the site, just the intentions.
    Reply
  • billslugg
    bolide said:
    How could you ever expect to confirm the presence (or absence) of the remains of a small spacecraft, with a resolution of 100 meters/pixel?
    The impacting spacecraft disturbs teh regolith over areas large enough to be resolved by a 100 meters resolution camera.
    Reply
  • billslugg
    Sparky64 said:
    That has got to be the worst copout excuse anyone has ever given. This is deliberate. You go into the archives and you will find crystal clear images but somehow they pulled a low quality image for this example? Well isn't that just convenient. Why do people want to create more conspiracies? I do not doubt the site, just the intentions.
    NASA has not imaged the entire Moon with the narrow angle cameras. There is no high resolution "before" picture.
    If you think I am wrong, then why don't you "go into the archives" and show us the narrow angle image of the same spot?
    Reply
  • Sparky64
    The only one you are trying hard to convince is yourself, because no else is buying this BS. If you look hard enough in the before picture you can see something at the very same place they are pointing the arrows at, but because it is so conveniently blurry it is extremely hard to make out, but there is something, there unless your vision is far worse than a bats. That is by design.
    Reply
  • billslugg
    I don't want to look at a blurry picture.

    I want you to "go into the archives and ... find crystal clear images" and show me these "crystal clear images" you claim exist.
    Reply
  • bolide
    billslugg said:
    The impacting spacecraft disturbs teh regolith over areas large enough to be resolved by a 100 meters resolution camera.
    I can't see "disturbance of the regolith" either, in those images, while the article all but claims that they got pictures of pieces of the lander.
    Reply
  • billslugg
    Narrow angle camera can resolve to 0.5 meters, small enough to see pieces as well as disturbed regolith.
    Reply