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Al Jazeera
4 days ago
- Business
- Al Jazeera
Japanese firm declares lunar mission a failure after crash landing
A Japanese-made private lunar lander has crashed while attempting to touch down on the moon, with its makers officially declaring the mission a failure. Tokyo-based company ispace said on Friday that its lander, named Resilience, dropped out of lunar orbit as planned and that the mission appeared to be going well. But flight controllers lost contact with Resilience, which was carrying a mini rover, moments before its scheduled touchdown on the surface of the moon following an hourlong descent. Ground support was met with silence as they attempted to regain contact with the lander and after several hours declared the mission a failure. The company's livestream of the attempted landing then came to an abrupt end. 'We have to take seriously what happened,' ispace CEO and founder Takeshi Hakamada said after the failed mission, as he apologised to everyone who contributed. This is the firm's second failed attempt to soft land on the lunar surface, coming two years after the Japanese start-up's first attempt to reach the moon ended in a crash landing. Launched in December 2022, the firm's Hakuto-R Mission 1 reached lunar orbit but crashed during its final descent after an error caused the lander to believe it was lower than it actually was. That mission's successor, Resilience, was launched in January from Florida on a long, roundabout journey. It shared a ride on a SpaceX rocket with Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost, which, upon reaching the moon first in March this year, made the US firm the first private entity to make a 'fully successful' soft landing there. The 2.3-metre (7.5-foot) Resilience lander was targeting the top of the moon, where the ispace team had chosen a flat area with few boulders in Mare Frigoris, or Sea of Cold, to land. Resilience was expected to beam back pictures within hours of landing, before ispace's European-built rover – named Tenacious – would have been lowered onto the lunar surface this weekend. The rover, made of carbon fibre-reinforced plastic and sporting a high-definition camera, would then have scouted out the area and scooped up lunar dirt for NASA. Resilience was also carrying a toy-sized red house created by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg. Moonhouse, as the model Swedish-style cottage was called, was intended to be the moon's first 'building', in a nod to Hakamada's vision of humans living and working there as early as the 2040s. But ispace's now second failed landing has left the Japanese entrepreneur's vision in doubt. The aerospace company's next, much bigger lander is scheduled to launch by 2027 with NASA's involvement. Prior to Friday's failed mission, the Japanese firm's chief financial officer, Jumpei Nozaki, promised to continue its lunar quest regardless of the outcome. But Jeremy Fix, chief engineer for ispace's US subsidiary, said at a conference last month that the firm does not have 'infinite funds' and cannot afford repeated failures. Company officials said this latest failed mission cost less than the first one – which exceeded $100m – but declined to provide an exact figure.
Digital Trends
4 days ago
- Business
- Digital Trends
Another commercial startup just flubbed a moon landing
Following its failed attempt to achieve a successful landing on the moon in 2023, there were high hopes that Japanese startup ispace would succeed on its second attempt early on Friday local time. But it wasn't to be. Similar to its first attempt two years ago when it attempted to become the first commercial company to achieve a fully successful soft landing on the moon, the Tokyo-based mission team lost contact with its Resilience lander in the final stages before touchdown on the lunar surface. Recommended Videos In a statement on the Hakuto-R Mission 2 delivered on Friday Tokyo time, ispace explained that following the initiation of Resilience's landing sequence, mission controllers were unable to establish communications with the vehicle. It said that as of 8 a.m. local time on June 6, the team had determined that it is 'unlikely that communication with the lander will be restored' and 'therefore it has been decided to conclude the mission.' Elaborating on the lander's final moments, ispace said that commands to execute the landing sequence were transmitted at 3:13 a.m. Tokyo time. 'The Resilience lander then began the descent phase. The lander descended from an altitude of approximately 100 km to approximately 20 km, and then successfully fired its main engine as planned to begin deceleration. While the lander's attitude was confirmed to be nearly vertical, telemetry was lost thereafter, and no data indicating a successful landing was received, even after the scheduled landing time had passed.' It added that the laser rangefinder used to measure the distance to the lunar surface experienced delays in obtaining valid measurement values. 'As a result, the lander was unable to decelerate sufficiently to reach the required speed for the planned lunar landing. Based on these circumstances, it is currently assumed that the lander likely performed a hard landing on the lunar surface.' It said that after communication was lost with Resilience, a command was sent to reboot the it, but a connection could not be established. '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,' said Takeshi Hakamada, founder and CEO of ispace. The company said it's now seeking to convince its backers that it can work through the issue and go again. The failure of ispace's second lunar landing attempt is yet another reminder of the challenges faced by commercial lunar missions, many of which have failed to make a successful soft landing on the moon. A breakthrough came earlier this year, however, when Texas-based Firefly Aerospace became the first commercial firm to achieve a fully successful soft landing, with its Blue Ghost Mission 1 lander. Blue Ghost operated for a couple of weeks, supporting various science experiments before finally losing power. With space technology advancing and launch costs reducing, private firms are increasingly interested in reaching the moon, primarily to explore opportunities for mining resources.
Japan Times
4 days ago
- Business
- Japan Times
Japanese space startup Ispace fails in second moon-landing mission
Japanese space startup Ispace's lunar mission ended in failure on Friday after the team was unable to make contact with its lander, with a hard landing appearing likely. 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.
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Second attempt for Japanese company to reach moon ends in failure
An attempt to land a commercially built spacecraft on the surface of the moon looked to have ended in failure on Thursday, two years after its predecessor, launched by the same Japanese company, crashed following an uncontrolled descent. Resilience, an un-crewed vehicle from the Tokyo company ispace, would have made history as the first non-US commercial lander to make a successful touchdown, scheduled for 3.17pm ET Thursday (4.17am JST Friday) at Mare Frigoris (the Sea of Cold) on the far north of the moon. But the company's livestream covering the landing attempt ended almost 30 minutes later, with mission managers unable to establish communication with the craft, and its fate uncertain. 'Mission control center members will continuously attempt to communicate with the lander,' an ispace commentator said immediately before the feed was pulled, promising an update at a press briefing 'in a few hours'. It brought back memories of the April 2023 failure of ispace's Hakuto-R Mission 1, when communication with the spacecraft was lost around the scheduled time of landing. It was later established that a software error had led the lander to believe it had already touched down when it was still hurtling towards the lunar surface. Resilience launched on 15 January from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on the same SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that carried the Blue Ghost lander manufactured by the Texas start-up Firefly Aerospace. Blue Ghost followed a speedier trajectory to the moon and made its own pioneering landing on 2 March. The apparent demise of Hakuto-R Mission 2 would be a significant setback for ispace's Venture Moon initiative that it said would be 'laying the groundwork' for an extended human presence on the moon. Ambitious plans include a lunar city with a thousand residents, the first arriving as early as 2040. It also hopes to eventually accommodate thousands more space tourists for shorter visits. 'Our goal is to build the cislunar economy, one in which the moon and Earth are economically and socially connected,' ispace chief executive Takeshi Hakamada said in a prepared statement released before Thursday's landing attempt. 'We view the success of the lunar landing as merely a stepping stone toward that goal. We strongly believe that this endeavor and its long-term success will contribute to making life on Earth sustainable for all humanity.' Resilience was set to deploy a small, European-built moon rover named Tenacious for a two-week mission. High-definition video footage and telemetry would have been beamed back to Earth for monitoring by the European Space Agency (Esa) and partners. The rover has a shovel intended to collect soil samples for evaluation as the search for evidence of the presence of life-sustaining water or ice on the moon continues. Nasa, the US space agency, will pay ispace $5,000 under an agreement signed in 2020 for a chunk of regolith it can study in furtherance of its own plans to land humans back on the moon for the first time since 1972, and ultimately on Mars. 'Tenacious is hopefully a very successful technological achievement, but beyond the technology it's also a symbol of the future of lunar exploration,' Géraldine Naja, Esa's director of commercialization, industry and competitiveness, told reporters earlier on Thursday. 'Esa is extremely proud and thrilled to support ispace Mission 2. This is a very good example of how we can support new space actors in Europe [and] commercialization. We are eager to support, eventually, a sustainable European-Japanese presence on the moon.' The 11lb (5kg) rover was also carrying a more quirky payload: Moonhouse, a model installation created by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg, that would have become the first property on the moon, albeit in miniature form. The bright red Swedish-style house was to have provided a splash of color against the gray backdrop of the moon's northern reaches. 'It's a small house in a vast, empty place, a symbol of belonging, curiosity and vulnerability,' Genberg told in an interview published Thursday. 'I hope it invites people to reflect on our relationship to space, and to recognize the fragility and uniqueness of our own world.' While the governments of five countries – the US, Russia, China, India and Japan – have successfully landed un-crewed robotic lunar explorers, commercial efforts have seen more failures than successes in recent years. In addition to the previous ispace flop, two attempts by the Texas company Intuitive Machines (IM), with its Odysseus and Athena landers in February 2024 and March 2025 respectively, ended prematurely when both spacecraft toppled over on landing. Mare Frigoris is a flatter area of the moon, with fewer boulders than the landing sites chosen by IM and Firefly. Ispace also chose to take its time getting to the moon, with the five-month journey of Resilience during a so-called low-energy transfer allowing the company to thoroughly evaluate its systems and computer programs after blaming a software error for the 2023 crash landing. A contract with Nasa will see ispace attempting to send a larger rover to the moon on a mission scheduled for 2027.
Digital Trends
5 days ago
- Business
- Digital Trends
How to watch a historic moon landing on Thursday
After failing to nail a lunar landing in 2023, ispace is once again vying to become the first commercial company in Japan to successfully perform a soft landing on the moon. It's also set to deploy the first European-built lunar rover. The Tokyo-based startup is aiming to perform a controlled touchdown of the Resilience lander near the moon's North Pole in the region known as Mare Frigoris. Resilience, part of ispace's Hakuto-R Mission 2, was launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on January 15. Besides demonstrating ispace's lunar transportation capabilities, the mission will also test several advanced communication systems, and deploy a number of science payloads. It will also deliver to the lunar surface a micro-rover, called Tenacious. The vehicle will collect soil samples and conduct experiments during its two-week exploration. As part of a cultural program for the mission, Tenacious will drop off a miniature wooden cottage artwork called Moonhouse, designed by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg. The mission marks ispace's second attempt at a lunar landing, following an earlier one that ended in failure in April 2023 when the lander lost contact with the mission team during its final descent. The following year, Texas-based Intuitive Machines performed a successful lunar landing in February 2024, though soon after touchdown, the Odysseus lander tipped to a 30-degree angle. Despite the unexpected development, all of its instrument payloads remained functional, and the mission was deemed a success for the private firm. And then in March this year, another commercial company, Texas-based Firefly Aerospace, became the first commercial firm to achieve a fully successful soft landing on the moon when its Blue Ghost Mission 1 lander remained stable and upright following touchdown. The lander operated for about two weeks before losing power due to the onset of a lunar night. Interest in moon exploration among private firms has increased in recent years due to advances in technology, lower launch costs, government partnerships, and the prospect of mining lunar resources, all factors that are making our nearest neighbor an exciting new commercial and strategic frontier. How to watch A livestream of ispace's attempted landing will begin at 2:10 p.m. ET on Thursday, June 5, which is 3:10 a.m. Japan time on Friday, June 6. The ispace team is currently targeting around 3:15 p.m. ET (4:17 a.m. Japan time) for the landing, though this could change. For the latest updates, be sure to check ispace's X account. You can watch the landing attempt via the video player embedded at the top of this page.
