A private Moon mission hopes to succeed where others have failed

LANDING ON THESLIMHAKUTO-R Moon is difficult. Of the five robotic landers that have made the attempt in the past year, only two succeeded. Both successful landers were sent by national space agencies—those of and Japan—though the Japanese probe, called , suffered an engine failure and landed upside down. , a lander sent by , Russia’s space agency, collided with the lunar surface after going into the wrong orbit. Two landers from private companies also failed: , sent by a Japanese firm, crashed during landing, and , made by Astrobotic, an American company, suffered a propellant leak and never made it to the Moon.