Tokyo firm ispace loses second lunar lander in two years after ‘Resilience’ probe descended too fast and smashed into surface at 187 mph – but company vows to ‘never quit’ with third attempt planned for 2027
Japan’s dream of becoming a commercial space power has been shattered once again after its second moon lander crashed into the lunar surface at devastating speed, marking another humiliating failure for the ambitious Tokyo-based company ispace.
The £100 million ‘Resilience’ spacecraft plummeted into the Moon’s surface at a catastrophic 187 kilometers per hour – far too fast for survival – after a critical laser rangefinder failed to measure the probe’s altitude correctly during its final descent.
In heartbreaking scenes at mission control in Tokyo, engineers watched helplessly as telemetry data suddenly ceased just 192 meters above the lunar surface, with the last readings showing the 7.5-foot-tall lander racing towards certain destruction.
The devastating crash marks the second consecutive failure for ispace, whose first moon lander suffered an almost identical fate in April 2023, raising serious questions about Japan’s ability to compete in the new commercial space race.
‘We Have Failed Again’
Company founder and CEO Takeshi Hakamada fought back emotions as he addressed a packed press conference in Tokyo hours after the crash, bowing deeply in apology to investors, customers and the Japanese people.
“This is our second failure, and about these results, we have to really take it seriously,” the 45-year-old entrepreneur said through a translator, his voice heavy with disappointment.
“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.”
The disaster unfolded at 3:17 p.m. EDT (4:17 a.m. Japan time) on Thursday as millions watched a live webcast of what was supposed to be Japan’s historic first private moon landing.
Fatal Laser Failure
Initial analysis revealed that the spacecraft’s laser rangefinder – a crucial sensor designed to measure distance to the Moon’s surface – “experienced delays in obtaining valid measurement values” during the critical final moments of descent.
As a result, the lander was unable to decelerate sufficiently to reach the required speed for the planned lunar landing,” ispace confirmed in a devastating statement released five hours after the crash.
The faulty sensor meant Resilience had no accurate idea of how close it was to the surface, causing it to maintain a dangerously high speed when it should have been slowing to a gentle touchdown.
Chief Technology Officer Ryo Ujiie revealed the laser rangefinder was a different model from the one used on their first failed mission, as the original vendor had discontinued the earlier version – a change that may have contributed to the disaster.
Déjà Vu Disaster
The crash bears eerie similarities to ispace’s first moon landing attempt in April 2023, when their Hakuto-R lander also plummeted to destruction after its altitude sensor became confused by a lunar crater rim.
That disaster saw the spacecraft hovering five kilometers above the surface while its computer believed it had already landed, causing it to run out of fuel and crash uncontrollably.
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter later captured haunting images of the crash site, showing debris scattered across the lunar surface – a fate that likely awaits Resilience.
“The data that we’ve been looking at – it wasn’t exactly the same as we have seen from the first mission,” Ujiie insisted, though he admitted both failures involved critical altitude measurement errors.
Dreams Dashed
The mission had carried the hopes of an entire nation, along with several scientific payloads now lost forever in the lunar dust:
- Tenacious rover: A tiny 11-pound, four-wheeled explorer built by ispace’s European subsidiary, equipped with cameras and a shovel to collect lunar samples for NASA
- Water electrolyzer: Equipment designed to test producing water on the Moon
- Food production experiment: A module from Japanese biotech firm Euglena to test growing food in space
- Moonhouse: A miniature red cottage art project that was to be placed on the lunar surface
- UNESCO memory disk: A digital time capsule for future generations
All were destroyed in the high-speed impact that likely created a new crater in Mare Frigoris – the “Sea of Cold” – where Resilience was attempting to land.
Commercial Space Race Casualties
The failure highlights the extreme difficulty of landing on the Moon, even as multiple nations and companies race to establish a commercial presence on Earth’s nearest neighbor.
Of recent private attempts:
- Astrobotic’s Peregrine (January 2024): Suffered fuel leak and never reached the Moon
- Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus (February 2024): Landed but tipped over
- Firefly’s Blue Ghost (March 2025): Successfully landed
- Intuitive Machines’ Athena (March 2025): Landed but toppled over and died within hours
Only American companies have achieved successful commercial moon landings so far, leaving Japan’s space ambitions in tatters.
Stock Market Meltdown
Investors reacted with fury to the second consecutive failure, with ispace shares suspended from trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange after being overwhelmed by sell orders.
The company’s stock looked set to plunge by the daily limit of 29%, potentially wiping billions of yen from its market capitalization of 110 billion yen ($766 million).
“We’re not facing any immediate financial deterioration or distress because of the event,” CFO Jumpei Nozaki insisted unconvincingly, citing “recurring investor support.”
But market analysts warned the second failure could prove fatal for investor confidence in Japan’s commercial space sector.
Political Fallout
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba attempted to shore up confidence with a supportive message on X: “Expectations for ispace have not faded.”
But the failure is a major blow to Japan’s participation in NASA’s Artemis program, which had been counting on ispace’s transportation capabilities for future lunar missions.
Professor Kazuto Saiki of Ritsumeikan University, who worked on Japan’s successful government-led SLIM lunar mission, warned that Japanese companies may now look to foreign firms for lunar transportation.
“Although ispace will likely remain Japan’s most advanced lunar transportation company, some Japanese firms may start to consider transport options from foreign entities,” he said.
Never Quit the Lunar Quest
Despite the devastating setback, ispace is pressing ahead with ambitious plans for future missions under their motto “Never Quit the Lunar Quest.
The company’s U.S. subsidiary is building a larger lander called Apex 1.0 for a 2027 mission to the Moon’s far side, supported by NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.
A separate Japanese lander design, Series 3, is also planned for 2027 with $80 million in funding from the Japanese government.
“The most important thing is to find out the cause for the second failure,” Hakamada said. “We have to use that to make Mission 3 and Mission 4 a success.”
Four-Month Journey to Disaster
Resilience’s doomed voyage began on January 15, 2025, when it launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket alongside Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander.
While Blue Ghost took a direct route and successfully landed in March, Resilience followed a fuel-efficient but time-consuming trajectory, traveling 1.4 million kilometers through space.
The spacecraft entered lunar orbit on May 6 and spent a month gradually lowering its altitude in preparation for the landing attempt.
Everything appeared normal until those final, fatal 90 seconds when the laser rangefinder failed and sealed Resilience’s fate.
Learning from Failure
Former NASA astronaut Ron Garan, chairman of ispace’s U.S. subsidiary, tried to remain philosophical about the crash: “Space is hard. Landing on the Moon is really hard.”
But with each failure costing over $100 million and taking years to prepare, ispace cannot afford many more disasters if it hopes to survive in the increasingly competitive commercial space industry.
Ispace, like other businesses, does not have infinite funds and cannot afford repeated failures,” the company’s U.S. chief engineer Jeremy Fix had warned at a conference last month.
As engineers begin the painstaking process of analyzing the failure, one thing is clear: Japan’s dreams of conquering the Moon commercially remain as distant as ever, crashed and broken on the unforgiving lunar surface alongside the wreckage of Resilience.
Image credit: Full Moon view from Earth in Belgium (Hamois) by Luc Viatour, taken on 7 October 2006 using a 103 mm refractor, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution‑ShareAlike 3.0 (CC BY‑SA 3.0)
