A private Japanese spacecraft carrying Europe’s first moon rover, Resilience, has likely been destroyed during a “hard landing” on the moon, according to its company, ispace. The lander lost contact with ground control just hours before it was set to make a lunar touchdown.
Resilience, which was carrying the Tenacious rover, a small European-built vehicle designed to roam the moon’s surface, attempted to land in an unexplored region of the northern hemisphere. However, mission control lost contact with the spacecraft at 3:17 p.m. ET on Thursday and was unable to restore it by Friday morning.
It is now highly unlikely that the European rover or any of the other payloads can be deployed. The Tenacious rover would have conducted various experiments, including collecting lunar regolith, but its fate is uncertain due to the hard landing.
Resilience was the third Japanese lander to attempt a moon landing, following previous failures. Its launch on January 15 marked a new attempt to reach the lunar surface with private funding.
Source: https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/japanese-spacecraft-goes-dark-during-attempted-moon-landing-its-payload-would-have-been-a-world-first