00:00While SpaceX's failed Starship launch no doubt took over headlines this week,
00:04destroying its own launch pad, and more or less exploding in the skies over Texas,
00:08there was another private space firm failure, though this one happened around 240,000 miles away.
00:14iSpace, a Japanese space firm, was set to be the first private space company to land a craft on the
00:19moon.
00:19It's not the first company to attempt it, but this one did end up like the other private space firm's
00:24spacecraft,
00:25a scored spot on the moon's surface.
00:27The Hakuto RM-1 lunar lander was descending to the lunar surface as planned when the live feed cut out.
00:33Five minutes later, this was all that was left of the lander.
00:36NASA engineers say that traveling into and around space is no easy feat,
00:40but landing a craft on an alien world is among the most difficult endeavors.
00:44With Robert Braun, a NASA engineer who has worked on doing just that for the space agency, saying,
00:49Among all the things we do in space, landing is one of the more challenging aspects,
00:53because time gets greatly compressed.
00:55That's because radio transmissions to and from the moon are delayed on average 2.56 seconds,
01:01meaning double that to send a return message.
01:03And that's after attempting to find a solution or troubleshoot in real time,
01:06after something may have gone wrong.
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