Japanese mission to moon ends in apparent failure

An attempt to land a commercially built spacecraft on the surface of the moon looked to have ended in failure, two years after its predecessor, launched by the same Japanese company, crashed following an uncontrolled descent.

- Richard Luscombe

Resilience, an uncrewed vehicle from the Tokyo company ispace, would have made history as the first non-US commercial lander to make a successful touchdown, scheduled for 8.17pm on Thursday at Mare Frigoris (the Sea of Cold) in the far north of the moon.

But the company's live stream covering the landing attempt ended almost 30 minutes later, with mission managers unable to establish communication with the craft, and its fate uncertain.

"Mission control centre members will continuously attempt to communicate with the lander," an ispace commentator said immediately before the feed was pulled, promising an update at a press briefing "in a few hours".

In April 2023 ispace's Hakuto-R Mission 1 failed when communication with the spacecraft was lost around the scheduled time of landing. It was established that a software error had led the lander to believe it had already touched down when it was still hurtling towards the lunar surface.