Second ispace Moon landing attempt unsuccessful

Japanese company ispace said its second commercial Moon landing attempt was unsuccessful after being unable to communicate with the Resilience lander following the planned touchdown time.

The company hoped to make an epic comeback this week by landing a robotic mission on a region of the Moon known as the Sea of Cold.

Two years ago, ispace attempted to make the first commercial Moon landing but lost communication with the HAKUTO-R Mission 1. On Friday (Thursday EST), the second Hakuto mission, nicknamed Resilience, was set to touch down on a 3.5 billion-year-old volcanic region of the Moon known as Mare Frigoris, or the Sea of Cold. 

However, hours after the targeted touchdown on Thursday at 3:17 p.m. EST (Friday 4:17 a.m. JST), engineers at the mission control center (MCC) in Tokyo were still working to confirm the status of the spacecraft. 

"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," ispace Founder and CEO Hakamada said. "We will strive to restore trust by providing a report of the findings to our shareholders, payload customers, HAKUTO-R partners, government officials, and all supporters of ispace."

If successful, Resilience would have marked the second Moon landing launched from the same rocket. The ispace mission launched on Jan. 15 aboard a SpaceX rocket, which also carried the Blue Ghost moon lander from Texas-based Firefly Aerospace.

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In February, Firefly’s lander successfully touched down, becoming the first American commercial mission to achieve an upright landing on the Moon. 

Resilience also carried the first European-built Moon lander named Tenacious. The rover was designed and built by ispace’s Luxembourg subsidiary.  Both missions were to spend two weeks operating on the surface of the Moon.

The private lunar landing attempt marked the third this year. 

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Intuitive Machines, another Texas company, landed its second mission on the Moon in March. However, both landers toppled over and did not remain upright for lunar science operations.

Ahead of the anticipated lunar landing, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) captured a photo of the intended landing site. While this is not a NASA mission, ispace was going to use the Tenacious rover to collect photos of the surface of the Moon to eventually collect lunar regolith samples under a NASA contract as part of the Artemis program.