Japanese Private Lunar Lander Resilience Fails Mission, Crashes on Moon

A Japanese spacecraft attempting to achieve the country's first private moon landing instead crashed on the lunar surface, according to mission officials. The Resilience lander, developed by Tokyo-based ispace, lost communication one minute and 45 seconds before its scheduled soft touchdown on June 5 at 3:17 p.m. EDT. The descent was targeted for the Mare Frigoris region on the Moon's near side. ispace had its second problem on the moon when its laser rangefinder broke, which is a big improvement over its prior failure in April 2023.

Japan's Resilience Lunar Lander Crashes in Hard Landing, ispace Vows to Learn and Rebuild

As per an official statement from ispace, telemetry from Resilience revealed that the rangefinder's delayed data caused a failure in adjusting landing speed. This likely led to a “hard landing”, suggesting the spacecraft hit the moon's surface too fast to survive or complete its mission. The lander, carrying five payloads, such as a Tenacious rover and scientific instruments, crashed with no survivors. The firm's CEO, Takeshi Hakamada, apologised and remarked that the company would use the mission to learn about future missions.

The Hakuto-R Mission 2 team launched a 7.5-foot-tall, 2,200-pound Resilience lander into space aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in early May. But with a perfect orbit, the lander smashed into the lunar surface at 192 metres – an echo of Mission 1's mission failure in 2023, which crashed because a fault in one of its altitude sensors was not corrected.

The Resilience crash adds to private attempts to explore the moon, including the unsuccessful Beresheet and Peregrine missions. Crewed landings such as Odysseus and Blue Ghost prove that dreams of commercial space are possible. The second Hakuto-R mission was a private attempt and a blow to Japan's space ambitions. Failure has not stopped ispace development for Mission 3 and Mission 4 with its larger Apex 1.0 lander.

Hakamada mentioned that the priority for the team was now to find out what caused the crash. “Supporters are disappointed,” CFO Nozaki says, “but ispace has yet to cover the moon, and the road does not end, even if Mission 2 didn't go as planned.”