A private lunar lander from Japan was reportedly nearing the moon, targeting a touchdown in the unexplored far northern region along with a mini rover. The moon landing attempt by the Tokyo-based company ispace was scheduled for Friday, according to Japan time, marking the latest effort in the rapidly expanding commercial lunar race. This attempt followed two years after the company's first moonshot, which had ended in a crash landing. As a result, the successor lander was named Resilience. Resilience was designed to carry a rover equipped with a shovel to collect lunar soil, as well as a toy-sized red house created by a Swedish artist, which was intended to be placed on the moon’s surface.
Since 2019, the moon had shifted from being the domain of governments to becoming a target for private companies, although the journey had seen more failures than successes up to that point. After being launched in January from Florida, Resilience entered lunar orbit the previous month. During its launch, it had shared a ride with Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost, which had reached the moon faster and became the first private entity to land there successfully in March.
Another U.S. company, Intuitive Machines, had reached the moon shortly after Firefly, but its tall, spindly lander faced a mishap, crashing into a crater near the moon's south pole and was quickly declared nonviable.
What is the purpose of Resilience mission
Resilience was directed towards the moon's top side, an area considered less daunting than the shadowy south. The ispace team had selected a flat region with minimal boulder presence in Mare Frigoris, also known as the Sea of Cold, which is characterised by craters and ancient lava flows across the northern tier of the near side.
Once Resilience had settled and established power and communication, it was set to lower the rover onto the lunar surface. This rover, made of carbon fiber-reinforced plastic and weighing just 11 pounds, had four wheels and was named Tenacious. It was equipped with a high-definition camera for scouting and a shovel to collect lunar soil on behalf of NASA.
The rover was expected to stay close to the lander, moving in circles at a speed of less than one inch per second. In addition to scientific and technological experiments, there was an artistic component as well. The rover housed a small Swedish-style red cottage with white trim and a green door, known as the Moonhouse, which had been created by Mikael Genberg and was intended for placement on the moon's surface.
Takeshi Hakamada, the CEO and founder of ispace, viewed this moonshot as merely a “steppingstone," with plans for a much larger lander to be launched in collaboration with NASA by 2027, intending for even more developments to follow. Jeremy Fix, the chief engineer for ispace's U.S. subsidiary, had emphasised that the company was not aiming to monopolise the market but rather to help build it, highlighting the enormous potential within this burgeoning market.
Fix had also pointed out that, similar to other companies, ispace did not possess “infinite funds” and could not afford multiple failures. Although specifics about the current mission's cost were not shared, company officials indicated that it was less expensive than the previous mission, which had exceeded USD 100 million.
Upcoming Moon missions
At the end of the year, two other U.S. companies, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and Astrobotic Technology, were also targeting moon landings. Notably, Astrobotic’s first lunar lander had missed the moon entirely in 2024, resulting in a crash back through Earth’s atmosphere.
Historically, only five countries had achieved successful robotic lunar landings: Russia, the U.S., China, India, and Japan, with the U.S. being the only one to have landed humans on the moon—12 NASA astronauts had done so between 1969 and 1972. NASA was expecting to send four astronauts around the moon in the following year, potentially paving the way for the first crewed lunar landing in over fifty years, with SpaceX’s Starship facilitating the descent from lunar orbit to the surface. Likewise, China was making plans for its own astronauts to land on the moon by 2030.
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