Japan’s ispace confirms its lunar lander Resilience crashed on the moon, marking a second failed attempt in its bid to lead commercial space exploration.
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| Despite high hopes and innovative payloads, Japan’s ispace fails to land its Resilience lunar lander, ending the mission after contact is lost post-touchdown. Image Courtesy: Japan News |
Tokyo, Japan — June 6, 2025:
Japan’s private space startup ispace Inc. has confirmed that its uncrewed lunar lander Resilience failed to safely land on the moon, ending the ambitious mission prematurely. The failure marks ispace’s second unsuccessful moonshot, following a crash landing in 2023.
The Tokyo-based company announced the loss of the spacecraft at a press conference on Friday morning, after repeated attempts to establish communication with the lander proved unsuccessful. The scheduled landing time was 4:17 a.m. Japan time, but silence from the surface led engineers to conclude that Resilience likely crashed.
“We have given up on accomplishing the mission,” said ispace founder and CEO Takeshi Hakamada. “We were unable to confirm a successful landing, and no signal was received from the spacecraft.”
The mission, which had generated global interest, aimed to make ispace the first private company to land on the moon’s far northern region, Mare Frigoris—a relatively flat and stable area compared to the more treacherous lunar south pole.
Launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 in January, the Resilience lander entered lunar orbit last month and carried with it several unique payloads. These included an 11-pound rover named Tenacious, designed to collect lunar soil for NASA, and an artistic installation known as Moonhouse—a small red cottage created by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg to symbolize human presence on the moon.
Tenacious, constructed from carbon fiber-reinforced plastic, featured a high-definition camera and a shovel for surface sampling. Unfortunately, the rover was never deployed due to the crash.
The mission had been described as a steppingstone by Hakamada, who emphasized its importance for the future of commercial spaceflight. A more advanced lander, built in partnership with NASA, is already in development and is scheduled for launch in 2027.
Jeremy Fix, chief engineer for ispace’s U.S. operations, had previously noted the tight financial constraints the company faces. “We don’t have infinite funds, and we can’t afford repeated failures,” he said ahead of the landing attempt. “But the potential here is massive.”
Since 2019, commercial lunar missions have surged, yet success remains elusive. Aside from a handful of successful landings—mostly by national space agencies—private efforts by companies such as Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines have also suffered setbacks.
While ispace’s failure is a setback for Japan’s private space ambitions, it underscores the difficulty of lunar landings and the high-risk nature of commercial spaceflight. NASA plans to send astronauts around the moon in 2026, followed by a crewed landing, while China aims for a manned lunar mission by 2030.
The outcome may delay ispace’s leadership role in the emerging commercial space sector, but its continued efforts suggest the company—and Japan—remain committed to reaching the moon, even after two failed attempts.