OREANDA-NEWS  The Japanese Hakuto-R M2 space module crashed on Thursday while attempting to land on the Moon due to too high a speed, according to a report from the iSpace development company.

The spacecraft was supposed to land in the north of the Moon in the area of the Sea of Cold at 22:17 Moscow time, delivering a five-kilogram mini-lunar rover Tenacious and equipment for scientific research to the surface of the Earth's natural satellite.

This is the second unsuccessful lunar mission by a Japanese company. In April 2023, the Hakuto-R M1 spacecraft also crashed while landing on the surface of the moon. During the descent of the spacecraft, engineers registered a small amount of remaining fuel, the speed of the probe increased during landing, then the specialists lost contact with it.

Hakuto-R M2 entered the Moon's orbit on May 7. The launch of the new Japanese module was carried out together with the Blue Ghost spacecraft of the American developer company Firefly Aerospace on January 15 using a Falcon 9 rocket from SpaceX. Blue Ghost successfully landed on the moon on March 2.