Japanese Resilience Lander Crashes on the Moon

Space is hard — and the surface of the Moon is even harder. The Japanese company iSpace attempted to touch down in Mare Frigoris on the lunar nearside with its Resilience spacecraft on June 5th. All seemed to go well, until upon approach, when Resilience suddenly fell silent about 90 seconds before landing. The mission has now joined the ranks of doomed missions that litter the lunar surface.

Mission control in Tokyo issued the command for Resilience to begin its terminal approach four minutes prior to touchdown. The lander then descended from about 100 to 20 kilometers (60 to 12 miles) above the lunar surface, then after confirming it was in a near-vertical configuration, fired its main engine to slow its approach. Contact was lost shortly after that.

Controllers confirmed in a press conference several hours after the landing attempt that the laser range finder experienced delays on approach, likely resulting in a hard landing.

This is the company’s second failed landing, after a first spacecraft crashed at Atlas Crater in 2023. That crash happened because a computer misinterpreted altimeter data.

“Just over two years ago . . . iSpace, operating Hakuto-R Mission 1, became the first private company in the world to attempt a lunar landing,” stated iSpace CEO and Founder Takeshi Hakamada in a press release from the company just a day prior to the landing. “While the mission achieved significant results, we lost communication with the lander just before touchdown. Since that time, we have drawn on the experience, using it as motivation to move forward with resolve. We are now at the dawn of our next attempt to make history.”

But after the next attempt ended in failure, the company acknowledged there are more lessons to learn. “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,” says Hakamada in a post-landing press release. “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.”

It’s worth noting that every lunar landing program has faced a string of failures before finally reaching success. NASA’s Ranger program in the early 1960s didn’t even manage to hit the Moon until Ranger 4, which impacted on April 26, 1962.

What Was Onboard Resilience

Resilience carried a deep-space radiation probe designed to measure the radiation environment of the site, courtesy of the National Central University of Taiwan. It also carried a water electrolyzer, provided by Takasago Engineering Corporation, that would have attempted to produce hydrogen and oxygen from a supply of water on the lander. This experiment might have paved the way for in-situ electrolysis of water ice harvested on the Moon. The lander also had an experiment onboard, supplied by biotechnology company Euglena Co., that would have tried to grow algae as a potential food source.

Another notable payload lost was a microrover named Tenacious, built by iSpace-Europe. This four-wheeled, 5-kilogram (11-pound) solar-powered rover would have studied the site near the lander and even collected lunar material with a small scoop. Tenacious would have been Europe’s first lunar rover.

Finally, the mission also had several artifacts on board, which probably did make it to the lunar surface. They include a commemorative plate, a UNESCO memory disc, and a small red model house (Moonhouse) mounted on Tenacious.

Not every recent mission has ended in failure, however. Firefly Aerospace experienced success with its Blue Ghost lander, developed as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. That mission actually shared a ride with Resilience, launching on the same vehicle, but it took a quicker route to the Moon. Blue Ghost ended its productive mission on March 18th.

What’s Next for iSpace

A command that was sent by the team to reboot lander after touchdown time didn’t succeed in re-establishing communication. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which snapped the landing site in Mare Frigoris last month, will probably follow up with a post-landing image.

On June 3rd, iSpace-Europe signed an agreement for first-phase development of ESA’s lunar rover, the Mission for Advanced Geophysics and Polar Ice Exploration (MAGPIE). In 2023, iSpace secured a $55 million contract under the CLPS program to deliver 95 kilograms of experiments to the Moon’s farside on Mission 3, featuring the company’s newer Apex lander.

If skies are clear, be sure check out the waxing gibbous Moon this evening, now the resting place for one more robotic emissary from the Earth that fell prey to ‘litho-braking’ on the lunar surface, Hakuto-R Resilience.