A Japanese lunar lander faced a setback on Friday when it crashed during its descent, marking another unfortunate event in the booming commercial space race to the moon. Tokyo-based company ispace declared the mission unsuccessful following a loss of communication with the spacecraft. The mission controllers attempted to reestablish contact, but ultimately, the mission was concluded following the unsuccessful outreach.
The communication was lost less than two minutes before the planned lunar landing alongside a small rover. Up to that point, the descent appeared to be proceeding smoothly from lunar orbit. Takeshi Hakamada, CEO and founder of ispace, expressed regret to those involved in the mission – this being ispace’s second lunar mission ending in a crash within two years. The previous attempt also faced a crash landing, prompting the name “Resilience” for the current spacecraft. Resilience was equipped with a rover featuring a shovel for collecting lunar soil and carried a small artistic installation — a red house by a Swedish artist for the lunar surface.
It remains unclear whether the same issue affected both missions. Officials speculated that this mission’s downfall might stem from the altitude-measuring laser system malfunctioning, causing the lander to descend too swiftly. The company’s statement suggested that the lander likely suffered a hard landing due to these issues.
While historically dominated by governmental entities, private companies entered the lunar mission race in 2019, with varying degrees of success along the way. Resilience began its journey in January from Florida and reached lunar orbit last month. It shared a SpaceX flight with Firefly Aerospace, which successfully landed its Blue Ghost lander faster, marking a significant milestone in March as it became the first private entity to achieve such a feat. Another American company, Intuitive Machines, reached the moon shortly after Firefly but suffered a crash landing near the moon’s south pole.
Targeting the moon’s more stable top regions, the ispace team selected Mare Frigoris, or Sea of Cold, as the landing site. This area is characterized by few boulders, numerous craters, and ancient lava flows. The mission envisaged Resilience transmitting images and deploying the rover over the weekend.
The European-built rover, named Tenacious and crafted from carbon fiber-reinforced plastic, featured a high-definition camera and a shovel for NASA-related tasks. Weighing a mere 11 pounds, it was designed to operate close to the lander, moving slowly around it or venturing up to about two-thirds of a mile away and functioning throughout the two-week daylight mission. Besides scientific objectives, the mission also carried an artistic piece, a tiny red Swedish-style house called the Moonhouse, for placement on the surface.
Prior to the landing attempt, Hakamada assured observers that lessons learned from the initial mission had been incorporated. He referred to the mission as yet another step “merely a steppingstone” toward an even larger mission anticipated by 2027 in partnership with NASA. While reiterated by Jeremy Fix, chief engineer at ispace’s U.S. subsidiary, during a recent conference, the company retains limited funds, emphasizing the importance of success in upcoming missions.
Two other American companies, Blue Origin and Astrobotic Technology, aim to achieve lunar landings by the end of the year. Astrobotic faced a similar setback in 2024 when its first lunar lander failed to reach the moon and eventually crashed upon reentry.
Historically, several countries including Russia, the U.S., China, India, and Japan, have succeeded in launching robotic lunar landings, with the U.S. making strides by landing astronauts on the lunar surface – a feat achieved by NASA twelve times from 1969 to 1972. NASA has future plans to send four astronauts around the moon next year, leading toward the first manned lunar landing in over fifty years, with SpaceX’s Starship expected to assist in returning astronauts to the lunar surface. China also has aspirations to land its astronauts on the moon by 2030.