Japan loses connection with moon mission satellite launched with NASA's Artemis-1

Japan has lost connection with its satellite OMOTENASHI heading to the moon. It was launched on the same day as NASA's Artemis-1 mission.

The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) confirmed that there was no response from OMOTENASHI which was deployed on November 16 on its moon mission alongside EQUULEUS, which continues to be operational.

The agency in official statement said the missing satellite has not completed sun acquisition and stable communication could not be established either, therefore, making it impossible to achieve the moon landing objective.

Recovery operations will continue, the space agency added.

A space agency has also formed a response team to look into what went wrong with the cubesat.

Meanwhile NASA's Orion sapcecraft has NASA's Orion space has successfully conducted an outbound powered flyby burn to accelerate the spacecraft, harness the force from the Moon's gravity, and direct Orion toward a distant retrograde orbit beyond the Moon.

(With input from AP)