Moonshot Meltdown Japanese Lander's Lunar Dream Ends in a Crash

Japan's ispace Lunar Lander Crashes on Moon in Ambitious Private Mission

The burgeoning era of private lunar exploration faced a setback on Friday as Japan's ispace declared its lunar landing mission a failure. Their "Resilience" lander, carrying a mini-rover and artistic cargo, crashed during its attempted touchdown, marking another significant hurdle in the commercial race to the moon.

The Tokyo-based company lost communication with the lander just minutes before its scheduled landing. Despite frantic efforts from flight controllers, silence prevailed, leading to the mission's premature conclusion. This marks the second lunar strikeout for ispace, following a similar crash landing two years prior.

"This is the second time that we were not able to land. So we really have to take it very seriously," stated CEO and founder Takeshi Hakamada, offering an apology to all contributors. However, he emphasized the company's commitment to forging ahead with future lunar missions.

Here's a breakdown of what we know:

• Communication was lost less than two minutes before the planned landing.
• A preliminary analysis suggests a malfunction in the laser altitude measurement system.
• This led to an excessively fast descent and a presumed "hard landing" on the lunar surface.

The Resilience lander was carrying:

• A rover with a shovel designed to collect lunar soil.
• A charmingly whimsical Swedish artist's toy-sized red house, intended for placement on the lunar surface.

The mission, launched from Florida in January aboard a SpaceX rocket, aimed for a relatively smooth area in Mare Frigoris, or the Sea of Cold, located on the moon's near side. The plan involved beaming back pictures and deploying the rover, named "Tenacious," to explore the lunar landscape.

The European-built rover, weighing just 11 pounds, was equipped with a high-definition camera and a shovel for scooping up lunar dirt for NASA. It was designed to operate for two weeks, during the lunar day, venturing up to two-thirds of a mile from the lander.

Before the attempted landing, Hakamada expressed confidence, stating that ispace had learned valuable lessons from its previous failed mission. He viewed this latest attempt as "merely a steppingstone" to a larger lunar lander mission planned by 2027, potentially involving NASA.

The financial realities of space exploration are not lost on ispace. As Jeremy Fix, chief engineer for ispace's U.S. subsidiary, noted last month, the company, like any other, doesn't have "infinite funds" and cannot afford repeated failures. While the exact cost of this mission remains undisclosed, it is reportedly less than the first, which exceeded $100 million.

Despite the setback, the race to the moon continues. Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost successfully landed in March, becoming the first private entity to do so. However, Intuitive Machines' lander experienced a crash landing shortly after. Adding to the list of upcoming missions are Blue Origin and Astrobotic Technology, both aiming for lunar landings by the end of the year.

The pursuit of lunar exploration has historically been dominated by governments. Only five countries have achieved successful robotic lunar landings: Russia, the U.S., China, India, and Japan. The U.S. remains the only nation to have landed humans on the moon, with 12 NASA astronauts completing missions between 1969 and 1972.

Looking ahead, NASA plans to send four astronauts around the moon next year, followed by a crewed lunar landing a year or more later, utilizing SpaceX's Starship. China also has ambitious plans to land astronauts on the moon by 2030.

While the ispace mission didn't achieve its primary goal, it underscores the inherent challenges and risks involved in space exploration. Each failure, however, provides invaluable data and insights, pushing the boundaries of what's possible and paving the way for future successes in our ongoing quest to understand and explore the cosmos. The dream of a thriving lunar economy and sustained presence remains very much alive.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2025/06/06/nx-s1-5424751/private-lunar-lander-from-japan-crashes-into-moon-in-failed-mission