Japan's ispace fails second private moon landing attempt

Fast Company

a day ago

A Japanese company trying to land a spacecraft on the moon Friday said that the unmanned lander is believed to have crashed into the lunar surface.
The Tokyo-based private space exploration company ispace reported that its Resilience lunar lander successfully initiated its descent onto the moon, but lost communication shortly afterward. Resilience made its descent from 100 kilometers above the moon's surface to 20 kilometers normally and its main engine fired to initiate the deceleration process before ispace's connection to the spacecraft's telemetry went dark.
Five hours after initiating the landing sequence and attempting to remotely reboot the craft, mission control determined that regaining the connection wasn't possible and declared an end to the mission, known as Mission 2 SMBC x HAKUTO-R Venture Moon.
A crash landing upends the mission
According to the company's early findings, the laser rangefinder Resilience used to calculate the distance to the surface of the moon was operating on a delay, an error that likely prevented the lander from slowing down for a successful landing. Given those findings, ispace concluded that its signature spacecraft 'likely performed a hard landing on the lunar surface.'
'Given that there is currently no prospect of a successful lunar landing, our top priority is to swiftly analyze the telemetry data we have obtained thus far and work diligently to identify the cause,' ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada said, adding that the company would issue a detailed report on its findings.
The failed lunar mission follows ispace's first attempt in 2023, which also ended with a bang. That craft, the Hakuto-R lunar lander, free-fell out of the sky for 5 kilometers before smashing into the lunar surface after onboard sensors miscalculated its altitude.
The lunar south pole in the spotlight
With interest in Mars on the upswing, humanity's drive to get back to the moon seemed to have waned in recent decades before a recent flurry of new lunar excitement. In 2023, India became the fourth nation to successfully land on the moon, joining the U.S., the former Soviet Union, and China. The following year, Japan joined their ranks when the country's JAXA space agency nailed a historic pinpoint landing on the moon, but pulled the feat off accidentally upside-down.
For national space agencies, the spirit of scientific exploration isn't the only thing putting the moon back in focus. The moon's icy south pole is believed to house water frozen in shadowed craters, a resource that would prove invaluable for future human activity on the moon, or even as a hydration waystop for space exploration beyond it.
That context is useful for understanding why manned moon missions are back on the docket for NASA, which wants to establish the first 'long-term presence' on the lunar surface and plans to put humans back on the moon in 2028, optimistically. China has its own plans to send astronauts to the moon by 2030, the first stepping stone toward its goal of establishing a lunar research station.
Private partnerships power the new space race
Lunar interest isn't just waxing among national space agencies. Private spaceflight companies around the globe have scrambled to get into the mix, with some like ispace sending their landers up with a ride from SpaceX rockets.
Firefly Aerospace, based in Austin, Texas, made history of its own in March when its Blue Ghost lunar lander reached the lunar surface, making it the first private company to soft land on the moon. A lunar lander from Houston-based Intuitive Machines followed closely behind but touched down at an odd angle, preventing the solar panels that power it from recharging to carry out its mission objectives.
Both lunar missions carried equipment for NASA through a program known as Commercial Lunar Payload Services, an initiative that will allow the agency to conduct scientific research through private moon missions.
Between global powers with designs on lunar ice and a lucrative web of public-private partnerships, the moon is the next big prize in the space race – one we're going to be hearing a lot more about in the coming years.