A private lunar lander from Japan fell silent while descending to the moon with a mini rover Friday and its fate was unknown.

The Tokyo-based company ispace said its lander dropped out of lunar orbit as planned and everything seemed to be going well. But there was no immediate word on the outcome, following the hourlong descent.

As the tension mounted, the company’s livestream of the attempted landing came to an abrupt end. More than two hours later, ispace said it had yet to establish communication with the spacecraft and was still working to gain contact.

The encore came two years after the company’s first moonshot ended in a crash landing, giving rise to the name Resilience for its successor lander. Resilience carried a rover with a shovel to gather lunar dirt as well as a Swedish ar

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