Efter en detaljeret analyse af situationen konkluderede ispace, at en softwarefejl var årsagen til nedbruddet.
Da det nærmede sig landingsstedet, foretog rumfartøjet en højdemåling, og dets sidesensorer registrerede dets skarpe fald. Tilsyneladende skyldes dette opdagelsen af kanten af krateret: den er 3 km højere end bunden. Ikke desto mindre ignorerede navigationssystemet denne information og fortsatte med at bevæge sig i henhold til den bane, som programmørerne havde fastlagt.
Thus, the computer estimated that it was low – above the surface of the Moon, although there was still about 5 km before it. The engines continued to run until the lander ran out of fuel. This was followed by a free fall and a hard landing.
At the briefing, ispace representatives said that in 2021, in preparation for the mission, the landing site was changed: specialists tried to take into account all the possible features of the new location and performed several simulations. But this did not help to avoid the error.
The next ispace missions are scheduled for 2024 and 2025. And since the failure was a software problem, future missions will not require hardware redesign.
Takeshi Hakamada, grundlægger og administrerende direktør for ispace: “Nu ved vi præcis, hvad der skete under landingen og har en klar ide om, hvilke forbedringer vi skal gøre for at lykkes med fremtidige missioner.”
