A Japanese private spacecraft, owned by Tokyo-based ispace, crashed in a failed lunar landing attempt in the Mare Frigoris area on Friday, the second moonshot failure for the company. The RESILIENCE lunar lander lost contact while descending, prompting ispace to call off the mission as a failure.
Failed Landing Sequence
The RESILIENCE lander started its descent sequence at 3:13 AM JST on June 6, from an altitude of 100 km to 20 km and used its main engine for braking. But contact was lost less than two minutes before providing data regarding a successful landing. An initial analysis showed that the laser altitude measurement system had malfunctioned and led to a more rapid descent, ending in a “hard landing,” as per ispace’s release.
“Given the lack of communication and telemetry data, we assume the lander performed a hard landing on the lunar surface,” ispace stated, citing the remoteness of the possibility of the lander or its payloads, such as the European Space Agency’s Tenacious rover, surviving.
Mission Objectives And Payloads
The mission hoped to return lunar soil samples for a symbolic $5,000 resale to NASA in support of commercial space activity. The lander hosted high-profile payloads, such as a micro rover built in Luxembourg, a water electrolyzer, a food production experiment, a deep-space radiation probe, and “Moonhouse,” a model house by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg.
Company Response
Takeshi Hakamada, the CEO and Founder of ispace, said, “Our priority is to analyze the telemetry data to identify the cause and prepare for future missions.” Though they suffered a failure, Hakamada reiterated the firm’s intent to pursue future lunar exploration, as happened with a similar crash in their maiden attempt two years prior.
Global Context
Only five countries—the Soviet Union, United States, China, India, and Japan—have made soft lunar landings. ispace’s second failed mission highlights the difficulty of private lunar missions. The company will revisit data and pursue further lunar missions to hone its technology.