Japan’s Ispace, a private aerospace company, suffered a failure in its attempt for a Moon landing that would have been a historic first. Its lunar lander, Resilience, failed on the Moon’s surface in its first mission attempt. That failed landing was this year in 2023. This incident has been another disappointment for the company, which previously suffered a similar botched mission two years ago. With ambitions to be the first company outside the United States to land on the Moon, Ispace’s failure raises questions about its future plans and capabilities.
Resilience was meant to carry out 14 days of exploration on the Moon’s surface after a successful landing. The lander underestimated how high up it was during its descent, which resulted in the disastrous impact crash. Fortunately for the mission, a huge wave of financial support came pouring in. It carried five external payloads valued at $24 million, as well as a NASA contract to take images of regolith, the Moon’s fine-grained surface material.
The mission’s landing site was Mare Frigoris, an expansive basaltic plain about 900 km from the Moon’s north pole. The ambitious project united unlikely stakeholders. It involved work with Japanese companies and a Taiwanese university — which provided scientific instrumentation for the mission. A four-wheeled design rover of Ispace’s Luxembourg-based subsidiary was developed specifically for use on the lunar surface.
In January, Ispace successfully launched a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket carrying Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander. While Ispace’s mission ended in failure, Firefly’s Blue Ghost-21 made a successful landing on the Moon in March. This event made the competition among companies pursuing commercial lunar exploration quite clear.
Ispace’s stock market capitalization has been impressive, topping 110 billion yen (around $1.2 billion). However, with all this financial backing, the recent crash raises questions about whether the company can deliver on its really passionate commitments.
Takeshi Hakamada, the CEO of Ispace, will host a press conference later that day to discuss the outcome of the Resilience mission. Plus he’ll discuss what’s up at the company after this major derailment. With the fate of Resilience still unknown in the wake of its attempted lunar landing, all stakeholders will be waiting with great interest for further news.
