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Great - this is some decent information. Thank you!

So, I've formed my opinions on both of these based on initial reports which all said similar things - contact was lost with the lander during the descent.

If that's reliably revised now I'd have to reconsider. Though it still strikes me as odd all initial reports were identical across the board. Why is that?

The third one is of course the subject of this article though we have come some way, so it's well understandable were it to become lost in the background.

Anyway, I appreciate your good natured engagement.



> Though it still strikes me as odd all initial reports were identical across the board. Why is that?

If you are asking why the initial report was about loss of signal then it is simple:

Crashing a lander leads to signal loss. The media wants to report on the situation and demands an imediate answer. “We lost the signal.” is a simple statement of fact the engineers can make without any further analysis. So they make that statement and the media reports it.

You were earlier saying that the initial reports all said the signal was lost minutes earlier than the landing? I don’t recall seeing anything about the timing.

> The third one is of course the subject of this article

No. The subject of the article is the first one in my list, the Hakuto-R Mission 1. Then there is the second on my list the Beresheet. And then it sounded like you were refering to a third comercial lander?

> Anyway, I appreciate your good natured engagement.

Thank you. I try my best. And thank you for yours too.


Sorry, this is the other on my list, but while it had the most oddities of all in terms of aftermath, looking deeper it was not commercial:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandraydaan-2

I can't find it, but at the time Antrix Corporation (India's commercial space contractor) was reported as responsible for it. This appears to be incorrect. Which throws the base premise here somewhat out the window.

Thanks for prompting me to look into it again. The corrected stats for failed lunar landers would be:

  Government: 2/26 (7.7%)
  Commercial: 2/2 (100%)
Not nearly as odd, but worth tracking.




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