The sad news came from space. After being released by NASA's Artemis mission, a Japan-made cubeSat named OMOTENASHI died.
The OMOTENASHI Project gave up their Ultra-High Frequency operation on the landing phase after communication didn't come back. Thanks for the great cooperation from everyone.
Japan would have been the first nation to land on the moon if it had made it there.
OMOTENASHI was one of three CubeSats to launch with Artemis I, along with ArgoMoon and NASA's own CubeSat-slash-biolab BioSentinel.
The only thing JAXA was supposed to do was land on the moon. Small craft landings are an important task for the future of economical space travel.
The main goal of the project is to test the technologies and trajectory maneuvers that allow a small lander to land on the Moon while keeping its systems intact.
Things didn't go as planned and the tiny Japanese craft is out for the count. It's sad for those who worked to build it, as well as for Japan more broadly, that they wouldn't have made it if all went to plan. It's a tough one to lose.
The Italian probe will watch as the US smashes a asteroid with a battering ram.
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