Japan's ispace Resilience Lunar Lander | Mission 2 Status Update

Japan's ispace Resilience Lunar Lander | Mission 2 Status Update

FriendsofNASA.org: As of 8:00 a.m. on June 6, 2025, Japan Standard Time (JST), mission controllers have determined that it is unlikely that communication with the lander will be restored and therefore completing Success 9 is not achievable. It has been decided to conclude the mission.

ispace engineers at the HAKUTO-R Mission Control Center in Nihonbashi, Tokyo, transmitted commands to execute the landing sequence at 3:13 a.m. on June 6, 2025. The RESILIENCE lander then began the descent phase. The lander descended from an altitude of approximately 100 km to approximately 20 km, and then successfully fired its main engine as planned to begin deceleration. While the lander’s attitude was confirmed to be nearly vertical, telemetry was lost thereafter, and no data indicating a successful landing was received, even after the scheduled landing time had passed.

Based on the currently available data, the Mission Control Center has been able to confirm the following: The laser rangefinder used to measure the distance to the lunar surface experienced delays in obtaining valid measurement values. As a result, the lander was unable to decelerate sufficiently to reach the required speed for the planned lunar landing. Based on these circumstances, it is currently assumed that the lander likely performed a hard landing on the lunar surface.

After communication with the lander was lost, a command was sent to reboot the lander, but communication was unable to be re-established.

“Given that there is currently no prospect of a successful lunar landing, our top priority is to swiftly analyze the telemetry data we have obtained thus far and work diligently to identify the cause,” said Takeshi Hakamada, Founder and CEO of ispace.

Read more here: https://ispace-inc.com/news-en/?p=7664

ispace Mission 2 Press Conference: 
https://www.youtube.com/live/0yr1a-hf7SQ

Learn more about Mission 2: https://ispace-inc.com/m2

Credit: ispace

Release Date: June 5, 2025

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