Japanese space startup Ispace fails in second moon-landing mission
The company had hoped it would become the first private company outside the United States to achieve a soft landing on the moon.
The lander, named Resilience, was meant to touch down early morning Japan time near the center of the Mare Frigoris (Sea of Cold) in the moon's northern hemisphere, as part of Mission 2 under Ispace's Hakuto-R program.
However, after the planned landing time of 4:17 a.m., the team was unable to make contact with Resilience. At a news conference at 9 a.m., company founder and CEO Takeshi Hakamada said the team determined that it had to abandon the mission.
'We really wanted this mission to succeed but we were unable to pull off the landing,' he said. 'Along with the spirit of the name Resilience, we will analyze the issues that caused this and keep pressing forward for the future.'
Takeshi Hakamada, founder and CEO of Japanese space startup Ispace |
Tomoko Otake
Although it was confirmed that the lander was almost vertical, communication was subsequently lost, and no data indicating landing was received.
While the cause of the communication failure remains unclear, the company said that there was a delay in obtaining measurements from the laser range finder, which measures the distance to the lunar surface, and that the lander was not able to slow down sufficiently to the speed required for landing.
Given these circumstances, the company believes there is a high probability that the lander made a hard landing on the lunar surface.
This was Ispace's second attempt at a lunar landing, following the failure of its Hakuto-R Mission 1 in April 2023. That mission also ended in a failure after a software error caused the lander to miscalculate its altitude and fall from about 5 kilometers above the surface. However, the company stressed that the issues this time are different.
The Resilience lander launched on Jan. 15 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, alongside Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander, which reached the lunar surface in March via a separate trajectory. Ispace's mission took a longer, lower-energy route, using gravitational forces to gradually enter lunar orbit rather than relying on high-powered heavy propulsion.
Resilience was part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, which aims to deliver scientific instruments and technology demonstrations to the lunar surface. Its payload included a range of scientific and cultural items.
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