Japanese company loses contact with Moon lander

Japanese company loses contact with Moon lander
By Natsuko Fukue with Issam Ahmed in Washington
Tokyo (AFP) June 5, 2025

A Japanese company lost contact with its Moon lander Resilience during a daunting final descent, dealing a blow to its bid to make history two years after a prior mission ended in a crash.

Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to become only the third private firm -- and the first outside the United States -- to achieve a soft landing on the lunar surface.

Touchdown was scheduled for 4:17 am Japan time on Friday (1917 GMT Thursday) on the Mare Frigoris region of the Moon's northern hemisphere, but the mood in mission control turned somber.

Around 15 minutes after the scheduled time, announcers on a livestream, speaking through English interpreters, said: "Members of the MCC (Mission Control Center) will continuously attempt to communicate with the lander," adding that further updates would come at a press conference.

They signed off with the message: "Never quit the lunar quest."

Company CEO Takeshi Hakamada had struck an optimistic tone ahead of the attempt, saying iSpace had "leveraged the operational experience gained in Mission 1 and during this current voyage to the Moon."

"I'm so looking forward to what's going to happen today," added JAXA president Hiroshi Yamakawa on the livestream before the descent. The mood had been celebratory, with a watch party also held by iSpace's US branch in Washington.

On board the lander were several high-profile payloads: Tenacious, a Luxembourg-built micro rover; a water electrolyzer to split molecules into hydrogen and oxygen; a food production experiment; and a deep-space radiation probe. The rover also carried "Moonhouse," a model home designed by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg.

The mission also aimed to collect two lunar soil samples and sell them to NASA for $5,000. Though the samples would remain on the Moon, the symbolic transaction is meant to strengthen the US stance that commercial activity -- though not sovereign claims -- should be allowed on celestial bodies.

To date, only five nations have achieved soft lunar landings: the Soviet Union, the United States, China, India, and Japan.

Now, private companies are joining the race, promising cheaper and more frequent access to space.

Last year, Houston-based Intuitive Machines became the first private enterprise to reach the Moon. Though its uncrewed lander touched down at an awkward angle, it still managed to complete tests and transmit photos.

Then in March this year, Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost -- launched on the same SpaceX rocket as ispace's Resilience -- aced its lunar landing attempt.

Despite their rocket ride-share, Resilience took longer to reach the Moon than Blue Ghost, and ispace was now hoping for its own moment of glory, after its first mission resulted in an unsalvageable "hard landing" in 2023.

Landing on the Moon is highly challenging as spacecraft must rely on precisely controlled thruster burning to slow their descent over treacherous terrain.

Intuitive Machines' second attempt at a Moon landing ended in disappointment in late March.

Its spacecraft Athena, designed to touch down on a spot called the Mons Mouton plateau -- closer to the lunar south pole than any previous mission -- tipped over and was unable to recharge its solar-powered batteries.

Meanwhile another Japanese startup, Space One, has been trying to become the country's first private firm to put a satellite into orbit.

Its latest rocket launch attempt in December blasted off but was later seen spiralling downwards in the distance as the company said the launch had to be terminated.