Japanese Lunar Lander Suffers Crash on Moon in Unsuccessful Second Try

A private Japanese spacecraft crashed into the Moon while attempting the country’s first commercial lunar landing on Thursday, June 5, the company has confirmed. This is the second failed moon mission for Tokyo-based ispace, which launched the Resilience lander aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket in January. 

ispace lost communication with Resilience less than two minutes before its scheduled landing on the Moon, the Associated Press reports. In a statement released this morning, the company explained that the spacecraft’s descent initially went smoothly. But once it reached an altitude of roughly 12 miles (20 kilometers) above the lunar surface, mission control lost telemetry with the lander. After trying and failing to regain contact, ispace concluded that Resilience had most likely crash landed on the lunar surface, ending the mission.

“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, in the statement.  

Based on currently available data, it appears that the source of the mishap was a malfunction of the laser device that measures the distance between Resilience and the lunar surface, ispace stated. As a result, the lander failed to sufficiently slow down to make its planned soft landing.

Resilience launched aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket on January 15, and entered lunar orbit on May 6, according to NASA. The 2,200-pound (1,000-kilogram), prism-shaped lander carried five payloads, including a tiny rover called Tenacious, a water electrolyzer experiment, an algae-based food production module, and a deep space radiation monitor. 

But perhaps most interesting—or at least, most unusual—was the adorable miniature house Resilience aimed to establish on the lunar surface.The toy-sized white-trimmed red cottage, appropriately named “the Moonhouse,” was designed by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg. On his website, Genberg states that he has been dreaming of putting a little house on the Moon for 25 years. Sadly, however, this whimsical work of art was unable to fulfill its destiny. 

The demise of Resilience is reminiscent of ispace’s first attempt to land a spacecraft on the Moon in April 2023. That mission also ended in a crash landing after the lander ran out of propellant while approaching the surface. 

ispace is one of several companies aiming to provide commercial payload transportation services to the Moon. But so far, only Firefly Aerospace has achieved a fully successful private lunar landing. The company launched its Blue Ghost lander on the same Falcon 9 rocket that ferried Resilience to the Moon in January. 

Despite two consecutive failures, ispace aims to launch two more Moon missions in 2027. The company will debut the larger, upgraded Apex 1.0 lander for these missions, but whether it proves to be more capable than Resilience remains to be seen.

“We know it’s not going to be easy,” ispace director and CFO Jumpei Nozaki told reporters during a press conference a few hours after the mission failure, according to Space.com. “But it’s hard. It has some meaning and significance of trying.”