In what will deal a blow to private space ambitions in Japan, Ispace Inc, one of the most prominent private space players to come out of Japan, announced on Friday that its uncrewed Resilience lunar lander is presumed to have failed in its attempt to achieve a soft landing on the Moon’s surface. Communication with the spacecraft ceased approximately one minute and forty seconds prior to its scheduled touchdown at 4:17 AM JST on Friday, June 6.
This event marks the second consecutive lunar landing endeavor by ispace that has not resulted in a successful soft landing. The company’s inaugural mission in 2023 also terminated with a crash landing, attributed at that time to a programming anomaly. Takeshi Hakamada, Chief Executive Officer and founder of Ispace, conveyed apologies to all individuals involved in the mission during a press conference held several hours following the loss of communication.
A preliminary examination of the mission data indicates that the lander’s laser altimetry system, critical for precise altitude measurement during descent, did not operate as intended. This malfunction likely led to an uncontrolled rate of descent. ispace’s written statement indicated that, based on these circumstances, it is currently posited the lander executed an uncontrolled impact with the lunar surface. Footage from the control room during the descent depicted mission engineers and observers in a state of heightened tension, with a silence descending as the anticipated landing moment passed without a verifiable signal. Eventually, the mission was declared a failure.
The Resilience lander had started its journey in January, launching aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. This same launch vehicle also deployed a lander from Firefly Aerospace, which successfully achieved a lunar landing in March. The lander carried a variety of customer payloads. These included a commemorative artifact from Bandai Namco Research Institute Inc., an entity affiliated with the entertainment company behind franchises such as Pac-Man and Gundam, as well as experimental apparatus, notably a device designed for the extraction of hydrogen from water resources.
Had Resilience successfully completed its mission, it would have become the third private entity globally to perform a controlled lunar touchdown, following Texas-based Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace. However, Intuitive Machines’ lander, which arrived on the Moon days after Firefly, also encountered difficulties, coming to rest on its side within a crater near the lunar south pole and being declared inoperable shortly thereafter.
Resilience targeted a landing zone within Mare Frigoris, also known as the Sea of Cold, an area characterized by its relatively flat terrain and reduced boulder count on the Moon’s northern near side. The mission’s objectives included the deployment of Tenacious, a compact rover that came with an approximate mass of 5 kilograms (11 pounds) and constructed from carbon fiber-reinforced plastic, was equipped with a high-definition camera and a sampling shovel. Its purpose was to collect lunar regolith and relay environmental data back to the lander. ispace previously secured a contract with NASA in 2020 to furnish the US agency with lunar regolith samples.
