Japan's ispace moon lander loses communication with engineers one hour before scheduled landing
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Contribution by
Reuters
Japanese company ispace said it has not been able to establish communication with its uncrewed moon lander following its lunar touchdown attempt on Friday, two years after its failed inaugural mission.
The craft, “Resilience,” is ispace's second lunar lander mission in a bid to become the first company outside the United States to achieve a moon landing. It was launched into orbit on January 15th.
Its target? Mare Frigoris or "Sea of Cold," a basaltic plain about 900 km (560 miles) from the moon's north pole. The featured picture above is a shot of the Earth rising on the moon taken by the lunar lander on May 27th.
Following an hour-long descent from lunar orbit, the Tokyo-based ispace live-streamed flight data showed Resilience's altitude suddenly falling to zero shortly before the planned touchdown time of 3:17 a.m. on Friday, Japanese time (1917 GMT on Thursday), Reuters reported on Thursday.
"We haven't been able to confirm communication, and control center members will continuously attempt to communicate with the lander," the company said in the broadcast.
Online media outlet, Spaceflight Now, posted its own theory on X soon after the mission abruptly ended.
“@ispace_inc ends its livestream without an update on the lander, but it's likely that Resilience had a crash landing. Assuming the final numbers were accurate, the telemetry showed 187 km/h at L-00:01:45 at an altitude of 52 m,” it wrote.
“The lander should've been between 3-1 km above the Moon's surface at that point,” it said.
.@ispace_inc ends its livestream without an update on the lander, but it's likely that Resilience had a crash landing. Assuming the final numbers were accurate, the telemetry showed 187 km/h at L-00:01:45 at an altitude of 52 m.
undefined Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) June 5, 2025
The lander should've been between 3-1 km above the… pic.twitter.com/b67cPVYufF
Footage from the Mission Control Center in Tokyo showed the nervous faces of ispace engineers, who reported daily check-ins with Resilience while the craft was in low lunar orbit awaiting preparations for landing day.
A room of more than 500 ispace employees, shareholders, sponsors, and government officials abruptly grew silent during a public viewing event at mission partner Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp in the wee hours in Tokyo.
While the status of Resilience remained unclear, the company announced its CEO, Takeshi Hakamada, will hold a press conference about the mission's outcome at 9 a.m. (0000 GMT), according to Reuters.
In anticipation of the scheduled landing and livestream of the event, at 2:17 a.m., ispace posted on X, "After months of preparation and precision flying, the final hour is here."
“RESILIENCE has travelled approximately 1.1 million km to get here. That’s more than three times the distance between Earth and the Moon,” it said.
1 hour until lunar landing!
undefined ispace (@ispace_inc) June 5, 2025
Let’s put this into perspective: RESILIENCE has travelled approximately 1.1 million km to get here. That’s more than three times the distance between Earth and the Moon.
After months of preparation and precision flying, the final hour is here.
ispace… pic.twitter.com/VlvAsNbNyk
The private space exploration company had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace, which have accomplished commercial landings amid an intensifying global race for the moon that includes state-run missions from China and India.
On June 3rd, the company took to social media excitedly describing the spacecraft’s expected descent phase.
“The lander will automatically fire its main propulsion system to gradually decelerate and adjust its attitude, with the goal of achieving a soft landing on the lunar surface," it said.
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