The Resilience Spacecraft Likely Crashed on the Moon
Early reports suggest that an issue with the Japanese lander’s sensors prevented it from sufficiently slowing down
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Ispace’s Resilience lander’s months-long journey to the moon ended in a crash yesterday, dashing the Japanese firm’s hopes of becoming the first non-American commercial lander to touch down on the lunar surface.
The lander was supposed to settle on Mare Frigoris, a narrow lunar plain on the moon’s northern region, around 3:17 p.m. Eastern. But mission control lost contact with the spacecraft shortly after it started its descent.
A laser tool used by the spacecraft to measure Resilience’s distance from the surface was experiencing delays, Ispace says in a statement. The malfunction likely prevented the lander from slowing down enough, resulting in a hard landing on the lunar surface.
“At this point, we do not know clearly about the cause,” said Ispace chief executive Takeshi Hakamada, the chief executive of Ispace in translated remarks, reports Kenneth Chang for the New York Times. The company is working on analyzing the telemetry data it has obtained so far to pinpoint the exact problem, he adds in a statement.
This is Ispace’s second failed lunar landing. In 2023, its spacecraft crashed into the lunar surface because of a software issue. Despite these two setbacks, Ispace does not seem to be giving up, pointing to SpaceX’ success. “SpaceX has also failed several times, but now SpaceX occupies the launching market,” Hakamada said in a news conference yesterday, reports Jackie Wattles for CNN.
Resilience took off on January 15 aboard a SpaceX rocket carrying another commercial lander, Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost. Blue Ghost touched down on the moon in March and completed its mission, but Resilience took a longer route to the moon. That longer, slower journey appears to have not paid off.
“This is our second failure, and about these results, we have to really take it seriously,” Hakamada said in translated remarks, per CNN.
Resilience carried five payloads, including a water electrolyzer experiment, a food production experiment, and a deep-space radiation probe. A rover named Tenacious carrying an artwork by artist Mikael Genberg will also never be deployed. The work, a tiny replica of a Swedish house, was supposed to be lowered onto the lunar surface.
For now, Ispace will have to look ahead. The company plans to launch another lunar mission by 2027. The firm is working alongside the Cambridge-based Draper on a lander called Apex 1.0 as part of NASA’s Artemis program, which plans to return humans to the moon for the first time in over 50 years. “We want to keep talking to NASA, but that also will depend on NASA, so we won’t know yet,” Hakamada said at the news conference.
"We know it's not going to be easy," said Ispace director and chief financial officer Jumpei Nozaki during a press conference, reports Mike Wall for Space.com. "But it's hard. It has some meaning and significance of trying."
