Japan’s private lunar lander ‘Resilience’ crashes, marks ispace’s second failed mission to moon

The lander named “Resilience” came two years after ispace first moonshot ended in a crash landing. Company officials said it was too soon to know whether the same problem doomed both missions, according to news agency AP

The company’s second lunar strikeout was declared a failure after flight controllers scrambled to gain contact, but were met with only silence. The lander, which was seemingly descending well till communication ceased, was expected to touchdown with a mini rover.

What was ‘Resilience’?

The 2.3-metre”Resilience”, launched from Floraida in January this year,  entered lunar orbit last month.

With the top of the moon as its target, ispace chose a flat area with few boulders in Mare Frigoris or Sea of Cold, a long and narrow region full of craters and ancient lava flows that stretches across the near side’s northern tier.

The plan, as per officials, was to beam back pictures within hours of the landing. The European-built rover — named Tenacious — was to be lower on the surface over the weekend. It was made of carbon fiber-reinforced plastic with four wheels.

It carried a rover with a high-definition camera, a shovel to gather lunar dirt, and a Swedish artist’s toy-size red house named “Moonhouse” for placement on the moon’s surface.

The rover, weighing just 5 kilograms, was going to stick close to the lander, going in circles at a speed of less than one inch a couple centimeters per second. It was capable of venturing up to two-thirds of 1 kilometer from the lander and should be operational throughout the two-week mission, the period of daylight.

A preliminary analysis indicates the laser system for measuring the altitude did not work as planned, and the lander descended too fast, officials said. “Based on these circumstances, it is currently assumed that the lander likely performed a hard landing on the lunar surface,” the company said in a written statement.

What the Tokyo-based company said?

Apologising to everyone who contributed, Ispace’s CEO and founder, Takeshi Hakamada, said: “This is the second time that we were not able to land. So we really have to take it very seriously.” The company would press ahead with more lunar missions, he added.

He considered the latest moonshot “merely a steppingstone” to its bigger lander launching by 2027 with NASA involvement. While not divulging the cost of the current mission, company officials said it’s less than the first one which exceeded $100 million.

Ispace, like other businesses, does not have “infinite funds” and cannot afford repeated failures, according to Jeremy Fix, chief engineer for ispace’s US subsidiary.

How many countries have pulled off lunar landing?

Only five countries have managed to pull off successful robotic lunar landings so far:

• Russia,
• US
• China
• India and
• Japan.

Two other US companies are aiming for moon landings by year’s end: Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Astrobotic Technology. Astrobotic’s first lunar lander missed the moon altogether in 2024 and came crashing back through Earth’s atmosphere.

Of those, only the US has landed people on the moon: 12 NASA astronauts from 1969 through 1972.

NASA expects to send four astronauts around the moon next year. China also has moon landing plans for its own astronauts by 2030.

— With inputs from AP