Japan’s Ispace Says It’s Trying to Make Contact With Moon Lander

Tokyo-based ispace Inc. said it’s trying to make contact with its lunar lander after attempting to become the first non-US company to reach the moon’s surface intact. 

Ispace’s Resilience lander was expected to touch down on the moon after 4 a.m. Japan time on Friday, but the company ended its live stream of the landing attempt without confirming the status of the mission. 

A press conference is scheduled for 9 a.m., the company said.

The mission follows a failed attempt in 2023 when a programming error led to a crash of the spacecraft. Success today would make ispace the third company to park a spacecraft safely on the moon after Texas-based rivals Intuitive Machines Inc. and Firefly Aerospace Inc., as countries race to explore the moon. 

The Japanese lander launched into space aboard one of Elon Musk-led SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets in January. The rocket also launched a lander from Firefly that touched down on the lunar surface in March. 

Resilience was expected to dispatch its rover, named Tenacious, which is equipped with a high-definition camera and a shovel to collect lunar regolith and transmit data back to the lander. Ispace signed a contract in 2020 with NASA to provide the US agency with regolith collected on the moon’s surface.

Aboard the lander are customer payloads with varying purposes including a commemorative plate from Bandai Namco Research Institute Inc. — an affiliate of the entertainment company behind game brands like Pac Man and Gundam — and experimental equipment such as a device to extract hydrogen from water.

Ispace plans to send its landers more frequently to the moon starting in 2027, with an aim to transport payloads two or three times a year, according to company’s founder and CEO Takeshi Hakamada. The plan is based on his belief that humans could start making a living on the moon as early as the 2040s. 

A successful mission would be a double win for Hakamada, who said in an interview before the landing attempt that Japan will lose out on opportunities to seek fresh growth if it refuses to accept failures as a course of nature.

“It’d be a huge loss for our society if failures only discourage bold attempts and trials,” he said. “We didn’t make it the first time, which was unfortunate. But we worked to make it happen the second time.” 

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