Japan's Resilience spacecraft enters lunar orbit, begins landing prep
Japan's private lunar lander, Resilience, has successfully entered lunar orbit, marking a major milestone for Tokyo-based ispace and the nation's ambitions in space exploration.
The spacecraft completed its critical lunar orbit insertion at 2:11 am IST on May 7, 2025, after a journey spanning nearly five months and over 1.1 million kilometers through deep space.
Launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in January, Resilience carries the TENACIOUS micro rover-designed in Luxembourg-and a suite of scientific and cultural payloads from international partners.
The mission's target is Mare Frigoris, a vast plain in the Moon's northern hemisphere, with a landing attempt scheduled for June 5, 2025. The mission aims to demonstrate new technologies, collect lunar soil. (Photo: ispace)
The successful orbit injection required a nine-minute main thruster burn, the longest of the mission so far, and signals the start of a month-long preparation period before the descent to the lunar surface.
'We are incredibly pleased that the RESILIENCE lander has successfully reached lunar orbit as planned today,' said ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada, crediting lessons learned from the company's previous attempt in 2023, which ended in a crash landing.
If Resilience achieves a soft landing, ispace will become the first Japanese company-and one of only a handful of private firms globally-to land on the Moon, following recent successes by Firefly Aerospace and Intuitive Machines.
The mission aims to demonstrate new technologies, collect lunar soil samples with the TENACIOUS rover, and deliver international payloads, including a memory disk from UNESCO and a miniature artwork.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
After bad weather, liquid oxygen leak stalls Shubhanshu Shukla-piloted Axiom-4 lift-off
CAPE CANAVERAL (FLORIDA): Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla's lift-off to Indian space history will have to wait. As D-Day dawned in India, Elon Musk-owned SpaceX announced that the Axiom-4 launch had been indefinitely deferred, citing a LOX (liquid oxygen) leak in the Falcon-9 rocket that engineers were unable to troubleshoot immediately. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Axiom-4 was to start its journey to the International Space Station from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex-39A at 5.30pm IST on Wednesday. The originally scheduled Tuesday launch was postponed by a day due to adverse weather. "Standing down from tomorrow's Falcon-9 launch of Ax-4 to the International Space Station to allow additional time for SpaceX teams to repair the LOX leak identified during post-static fire booster inspections. Once complete - and pending range availability - we will share a new launch (date)," Space X said in a statement released at 8.45pm Eastern Time Tuesday (6.15am IST, Wednesday). Hours earlier, it had shared a video of Falcon-9 and Dragon at sunrise and said the weather was 85% favourable for lift-off, with teams continuing to monitor highwinds in the ascent corridor. Installing purge to plug leak: SpaceX Hours earlier, it had shared a video of Falcon-9 and Dragon at sunrise and said the weather was 85% favourable for lift-off, with teams continuing to monitor highwinds in the ascent corridor. Isro chairman V Narayanan said, "... Based on the discussion on this topic by the Isro team with the experts of Axiom and SpaceX it has been decided to correct the leak and carry out necessary validation tests before clearing for the launch." TOI had reported on June 10 that SpaceX had unresolved technical snags that were detected during a 10-second pre-static test fire. On Saturday, Dragon and Falcon "went vertical" on the launch pad ahead of a dry rehearsal. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now On Sunday (June 8), SpaceX performed the static fire and began analysing data. "We discovered a few things during the static fire that we had to go take a look at. We found a LOX leak that we previously had seen on this booster during its entry on its last mission and discovered that we had not fully repaired the booster during refurbishment, or we actually didn't find a leak and didn't get it corrected," William Gerstenmaier, SpaceX vice-president of build and flight reliability, said late Monday. Stating that teams were trying to fix the issue, he added, "We should get that completed today, and we will have that back in configuration, and we are installing a purge that will essentially mitigate the leak." SpaceX also identified a thrust vector control issue with engine 5. The affected components have since been replaced. Gerstenmaier stressed the company's continued focus on safety and precision, noting that "space flight is really hard, and we are learning every day".
Deccan Herald
an hour ago
- Deccan Herald
Mysuru's DFRL understands gravity of astronauts' food cravings
Mysuru: The launch of the Axiom-4 mission carrying Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla and three others to the International Space Station (ISS) may have been postponed. .But Mysuru-based Defence Food Research Laboratory (DFRL), under DRDO, has prepared a variety of food items that were to have been carried as part of the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) and the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) have developed an Indian menu for space after years of with scientific instruments and personal mementoes, Shubhanshu would have carried Mysuru-made food to the ISS in the Axiom-4 mission that has now been put off. .SpaceX's Axiom 4 mission postponed again, India's Shubhanshu Shukla's maiden journey to ISS officer Madhukar confirmed to DH that the astronaut was to carry a few Indian foods for the mission, including mango nectar (aam ras), carrot halwa (gajar ka halwa), moong dal halwa and a few rice human spaceflight programme director had disclosed this in a meeting held recently in Bengaluru..'As per the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Isro and DRDO, we are not allowed to give out more details,' Madhukar said..'We are excited that the food products prepared here will be tasted by astronauts of the ISS mission. It is an effort to make the Indian astronaut's space mission memorable,' he cookies and candies are packed for space trips. NASA's space food systems laboratory produces freeze-dried this time the Indian astronaut will have Indian food on DFRL has developed a range of ready-to-eat and semi-hydrated Indian dishes for the mission, tailored for zero gravity. This includes parathas, vegetable biryani, rice and dal, sambar, rajma, khichdi and food has been designed in such a way that it is lightweight, low-volume and easy-to-consume wholesome food. The astronaut just has to add water to the items and warm it before eating it in tickled Rakesh Sharma's taste buds DFRL was established in Mysuru in 1961 to cater to the needs of the Indian Army, Navy, Air Force, and paramilitary forces. It aims to design light-weight food with a longer shelf life under varied climatic had also prepared and packed food for Rakesh Sharma four decades ago.
NDTV
2 hours ago
- NDTV
NDTV Exclusive: Axiom-4 Launch Delays Unusual? Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains
New Delhi: SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft, which will carry Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla and three other crew members to the International Space Station as part of the Axion-4 mission, was delayed again on Wednesday - for the fourth time since its original launch date of May 29. The reason this time - an oxygen leak was detected in the Falcon 9 rocket, which propels the shuttle carrying the astronauts. Earlier it was rescheduled due to unfavourable weather conditions. But is it unusual for a spaceflight to face so many delays? And is there reason for doubt? Not at all, says renowned American astrophysicist and writer Neil deGrasse Tyson, adding that such mission as a result a complex calculations which need to be accurate. "That's why it is called rocket science - because its hard," he says light-heartedly. In an exclusive interview to NDTV, Dr Tyson explained that delays are par for the course for space missions. "I wouldn't sweat it the least. I mean, ask yourself, how many things have to go right for a space mission to work? And we've all seen multiple launches. Watching a launch never gets old. We see the countdown, and then everyone says 'all systems go', and scientists (at the mission control) go 'check', 'check', 'check' - all the people who are verifying the launch capability of their little piece of that mission, before the spacecraft and rocket gets to orbit. And so, I would not fret at all over a delay." He added that "It would have been something different, by the way, if we had never done this before. Then the delays would be kind of mysterious, you know, like what could happen if we did launch, or if we didn't, and why, but we've been to the space station countless times, and the crew dragon has been there many, many times. So, It's not at all uncharted territory." Congratulating India for its decision to send the second Indian to Space, Dr Tyson said, "What's interesting to me is, while that (Rakesh Sharma's space flight) was kind of a one-off mission, right now, this voyage of an Indian astronaut can be seen as part of a broader context of India's reach into space and as a stepping stone, if you will, towards India having independent launches with its own astronauts as a nation going forward. And so, this has a little more significance than just a single astronaut gaining access to space. It has significance to the larger ambitions of India as a space-faring nation." The mission - a collaboration between Axiom Space, SpaceX, and NASA, will be historic for India, as an Indian Astronaut, Shubhanshu Shukla, will venture into Space after 41 years - the last being cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma, who went to Space aboard the Russian Soyuz T-11 spacecraft in 1984 as part of the Soviet Interkosmos programme. Just like cosmonaut Ravish Malhotra was the backup crew member for Rakesh Sharma in 1984, Shubhanshu Shukla, who is the pilot for the Axiom 4 mission, has astronaut Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair as his backup pilot for the mission. Other crew members of the Axiom-4 mission include Commander Peggy Whitson from the US, and mission specialists Slawosz Uzananski-Wisniewksi from Poland and Tibor Kapu from Hungary. Speaking about India's ambitious Gaganyaan mission - ISRO's first-ever human spaceflight programme, scheduled for 2027, Dr Tyson mentioned America's humble beginnings towards its space programme, shortly after the second World War. "I think that's a point of pride for the country" that India is working on indigenous technologies for its human spaceflight mission, Dr Tyson said, adding that "What Americans occasionally forget, is that our space programme was birthed in-part from expertise from German rocket engineers after the World War Two. So, it's not clear whether we could have done all of that ourselves. Maybe eventually, but not on the timetable that we felt necessary, because remember, we were competing with the Soviet Union at the time for these kinds of to have indigenous technologies is important. In fact more important than who you're launching into space, because you can take ownership of all of the science and technology that goes into it." Dr Tyson also recalled India's Chandrayaan 3 mission, which successfully sent a lander and rover to the moon's south pole - a spectacular achievement. "One point that I want to make, is that when India landed on the moon, many headlines around the world said 'India becomes the 4th nation to land on the moon', but I thought to myself, that's not the real headline. The real headline was 'India becomes the first nation to land softly on the south pole of the moon'. Russia tried to get there just a few days earlier and their mission failed. Remember, it is the south pole of the moon that is the next destination for us all, because as you said, there's water at the basin of craters would be needed for long-term survival and for any mission that seeks a long-term presence I think India can be very proud of these accomplishments." The launch window for the Axiom-4 mission extends all the way till June 30, so the opportunities are plenty. Though a revised launch schedule has not been declared yet, the mission will lift off from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center located in Merritt Island, Florida. This location has been used to support NASA crewed space flight missions, including the historic Apollo 11 moon landing. Since 2014, Elon Musk's SpaceX has leased this site to launch its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets.
