Editor’s note: pardon the sensationalist use of ‘crashed’; ispace used ‘hard landed’. Please see the quote from ispace below.|
Update 0530 UTC 6th June
In a press release, ispace gives new details as to the fate of the Resilience lander. From the press release:
ispace engineers at the HAKUTO-R Mission Control Center in Nihonbashi, Tokyo, transmitted commands to execute the landing sequence at 3:13 a.m. on June 6, 2025 (JST). 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.Based on the currently available data, the Mission Control Center has been able to confirm the following: 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.
After communication with the lander was lost, a command was sent to reboot the lander, but communication was unable to be re-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. “We will strive to restore trust by providing a report of the findings to our shareholders, payload customers, HAKUTO-R partners, government officials, and all supporters of ispace.”
Update: 0200 UTC 6th June
Hakuto-R Mission 2 has been closed by ispace. The company has determined that communication with the Resilience lander is not possible. A post-mortem is under way.
Update: 2300 UTC 5th June
The second attempt at a moon landing for Japanese lunar specialists ispace has occurred. The new craft, named Resilience, touched down on the Moon’s Mare Frigoris, or Sea of Cold. The landing comes nearly five months after liftoff from Earth. The touchdown was attended in person at ispace Mission Control by JAXA President Hiroshi Yamakawa and Japan’s Minister of State for Space Policy Minoru Kiuchi.
Mission Control in Japan is waiting for confirmation from Resilience that the landing was not a crash. The ispace livestream on YouTube ended with the company stating that they would continue to attempt to contact the lander.
At 00:01:00 before the landing target time, the lander was descending as expected, and a pre-planned radio blackout took place.
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Initial text below:
The Japanese company ispace is set to attempt a lunar landing with its RESILIENCE spacecraft on 5th June 2025, supported by the European Space Agency.
The mission, launched in January on a SpaceX rocket, is now in its critical final phase. Resilience Lunar Lander is carrying a TENACIOUS micro rover. Developed by ispace-EUROPE, it is designed to scoop up lunar soil and conduct onboard experiments. Its goal is to achieve what the company narrowly missed last year, when its first lander failed to reach the surface intact.
That landing is scheduled for no earlier than 5 June 20:24 BST (British Summer Time).
The live stream of the landing will begin approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes prior, at 18:10 UTC, which is 19:10 BST in London.
The spacecraft is intended to land near the center of Mare Frigoris, at about 60 degrees north latitude.
Resilience shares launch heritage with another commercial lander from Firefly Aerospace, which successfully touched down in March. That feat made Firefly the first private company to land upright on the Moon without incident. Intuitive Machines followed shortly after, though its lander ended up tipped in a crater.
For ispace, this is more than just a retry. Resilience is ispace’s second lunar lander mission. Its first mission crashed attempting a landing in April 2023, which the company later blamed on a software problem. It’s a chance to demonstrate Japan’s commercial readiness in lunar operations, and reinforce the rising role of non-governmental missions in space exploration. Resilience’s descent attempt, targeted for the first week of June, will be closely watched, not only for its outcome, but for what it signals about the future of private lunar infrastructure.
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