Tokyo-based startup ispace lost contact with its Resilience lander during a landing attempt at the Moon’s Mare Frigoris, a lunar mare located in the northern hemisphere also known as the “Sea of Cold.” The mission’s likely failure marks a significant setback in the company’s second bid to achieve a commercial lunar touchdown.

The first Hakuto-R mission (M1) in April 2023 failed after its software misjudged the lander’s altitude over a steep crater rim, causing it to run out of fuel while still about 5 km (just over 3 miles) above the surface. The Resilience lander’s flight plan for Mission 2 was designed to incorporate lessons from that anomaly.

What happened

The final phase of the mission began roughly one hour before the scheduled landing, as Resilience initiated its powered descent sequence. The lander appeared to perform nominally until the final moments. According to ispace via Reuters, it lost contact with the craft at about 4:17 a.m. JST on Friday (19:17 GMT, Thursday). Telemetry broadcast live during the attempt showed the lander’s altitude dropping to “0 m” just seconds before the communication link went silent.

The end of communications came after a nearly five-month journey that began with a launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on January 15. Resilience successfully entered lunar orbit on May 7, 2025, at 5:41 a.m. JST (May 6, 2025, 20:41 UTC). Over the following month, it conducted a series of orbital maneuvers to align its trajectory for a planned landing in Mare Frigoris.”

Shortly after the loss of signal, Ispace issued a brief statement on social media, confirming the anomaly and reporting that it had not been able to establish communication with its uncrewed moon lander, Resilience. The company’s live-streamed flight data showed Resilience’s altitude suddenly falling to zero shortly before the planned touchdown time of 4:17 a.m. on Friday, Japanese time, after an hour-long descent from lunar orbit.

The R&D lost on board

The fate of the Resilience lander also means the loss of its scientific and commercial payloads, which were focused on R&D for future lunar settlement. The primary payload was the 5-kg Tenacious rover, which ispace’s European subsidiary developed. The rover was designed to test technologies for in-situ resource utilization (ISRU), including the collection of lunar regolith samples.

Also on board were several commercial and scientific payloads Its 5-kg micro-rover from ispace-EUROPE, built on a carbon-fiber frame, was slated to explore Mare Frigoris. Using a shovel developed by mining partner Epiroc, it was meant to collect regolith in what would have been the first commercial transfer of lunar material to NASA. The lander also carried key life-support demonstrations, including a Takasago water electrolyzer to split lunar water into oxygen and hydrogen, and an experiment from Euglena Co. to test algae for food production and CO₂ conversion.