Japan’s private moon lander hard-landed on the moon on June 5, 2025. The Japanese private aerospace company ispace launched the moon lander ‘Resilience’ to the moon’s Mare Frigoris region on January 15, 2025.
The lander arrived in lunar orbit on May 7 and was scheduled to touch down on Thursday (June 5) at 3:24 p.m. EDT. However, the lander lost communication while landing, resulting in a presumed crash. According to Reuters, the lander was carrying a $16 million payload.
Resilience, a moon lander that is a part of ispace’s Hakuto-R Mission 2, was launched on January 15, 2025, aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. The mission aimed to deploy several payloads, including Tenacious (a European-built mini rover designed to collect lunar soil samples for NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA)) and Moonhouse (a symbolic art installation; a miniature red house created by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg).
Preliminary tests are indicating that a malfunction in the laser altimeter system caused the lander to misjudge its altitude, leading to a descent that was too rapid for a safe landing.
This incident highlights the challenges faced by private companies in lunar exploration, a domain where successful landings have predominantly been achieved by government space agencies. Nonetheless, the pursuit of lunar missions by private entities like ispace signifies a growing interest and investment in space exploration beyond traditional state-led initiatives.