April 25 (UPI) -- Ground controllers say they lost contact with the Hakuto-R commercial lunar lander Tuesday, shortly after it was scheduled to land on the moon.
The lander, which was developed by Japanese commercial space company Ispace, was expected to land Tuesday at 12:40 EDT.
The Ispace team tried to establish communications with the lander but was unable to do so. Shortly after, Ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamanda told the team, "we have not been able to confirm successful landing."
Hakamanda said the team had to assume "we could not complete the landing on the lunar surface. Our engineers continue to investigate the situation."
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The lander was meant to deploy the Rashid lunar rover, which was developed by the United Arab Emirates' Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center.
The Hakuto-R project has its origins in the now-defunct Google XPrize contest, which offered a $20 million reward for any company that could put a rover on the moon that is capable of moving and transmitting data to ground controllers.
NASA's future Artemis Moon mission is expected to rely heavily on information gathered by commercial space rovers.
In 2020, NASA announced that four companies, including Ispace Japan, had been tasked with collecting lunar samples for a future crewed mission to the moon.
Several recent attempts to land rovers on the moon have failed.
In 2019, a lunar lander from the Israeli company SpaceIL, named Beresheet, lost contact with ground control and impacted the moon's surface. Also in 2019, the Indian Space and Research Organization's Vikram lander crashed into the surface of the moon.
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter discovered the location of the Vikram lander's remains.
