In a major setback for commercial space exploration, Tokyo-based startup ispace has confirmed that its second lunar mission ended in failure after losing contact with its “Resilience” lander just moments before touchdown on the Moon. The crash marks the company’s second unsuccessful attempt to achieve a soft landing on the lunar surface.
🔴 What Happened?
- Communication was lost less than two minutes before landing, when everything seemed to be progressing normally.
- Initial investigations suggest a malfunction in the altitude-measuring laser system, causing the lander to descend too rapidly.
- A hard landing is presumed.
“This is the second time that we were not able to land. So we really have to take it very seriously,” said ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada, who apologized to all stakeholders.
🌕 About the Mission
- Launched: January 2025 from Florida via SpaceX.
- Target Site: Mare Frigoris (Sea of Cold) – a flat, less risky area in the Moon’s northern region.
- Payload:
- A 5-kg rover named Tenacious, built in Europe, equipped with a high-definition camera and a shovel to collect lunar soil.
- A miniature red Swedish-style “Moonhouse” artwork by artist Mikael Genberg.
- Goal: To conduct tech and scientific experiments and contribute to NASA’s lunar objectives.
💸 Financial Stakes & Future Plans
- The mission cost was reportedly under $100 million, cheaper than ispace’s first failed attempt in 2023.
- ispace officials warned they do not have “infinite funds” and acknowledged the mounting pressure to deliver success.
- Despite back-to-back failures, Hakamada insists the company remains committed, with plans to deploy a larger lander by 2027, in partnership with NASA.
🧭 Commercial Lunar Landscape
While ispace stumbles, others in the private sector have had mixed results:
- ✅ Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost: First successful private moon landing (March 2025).
- ❌ Intuitive Machines: Lander tipped over in a crater and failed shortly after.
- ❌ Astrobotic Technology: Missed the Moon entirely in 2024, crashing back to Earth.
- 🚀 Upcoming: Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and a second Astrobotic mission aim to land on the Moon by end-2025.
🌍 Governments vs. Private Sector
To date, only five countries have succeeded in robotic lunar landings:
🇺🇸 USA | 🇷🇺 Russia | 🇨🇳 China | 🇮🇳 India | 🇯🇵 Japan
(Only the USA has landed humans.)
NASA and China both plan crewed lunar landings — NASA by 2026 via SpaceX’s Starship, and China by 2030.