Second ispace lunar lander crashes
Posted: Sat, Jun 7, 2025, 10:55 AM ET (1455 GMT)
A lunar lander by Japanese company ispace likely crashed during its landing attempt Thursday. Resilience was scheduled to land in the Mare Frigoris region of the moon at 3:17 pm EDT (1917 GMT), but telemetry from the lander was lost about a minute and 45 seconds before the scheduled touchdown. That telemetry appeared to show the lander traveling at a far higher speed than planned. The company said several hours later that an issue with a laser rangefinder on the spacecraft kept the lander from slowing down in time, and thus Resilience "likely performed a hard landing." Company executives said they still needed to investigate the root cause of the failure, adding it appeared to be different from the software problem that caused ispace's first lander to crash in 2023. Resilience was carrying payloads from several Japanese companies and a Taiwanese university, as well as a rover built by ispace's European subsidiary. Shares in ispace fell nearly 30% in trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Friday.
A lunar lander by Japanese company ispace likely crashed during its landing attempt Thursday. Resilience was scheduled to land in the Mare Frigoris region of the moon at 3:17 pm EDT (1917 GMT), but telemetry from the lander was lost about a minute and 45 seconds before the scheduled touchdown. That telemetry appeared to show the lander traveling at a far higher speed than planned. The company said several hours later that an issue with a laser rangefinder on the spacecraft kept the lander from slowing down in time, and thus Resilience "likely performed a hard landing." Company executives said they still needed to investigate the root cause of the failure, adding it appeared to be different from the software problem that caused ispace's first lander to crash in 2023. Resilience was carrying payloads from several Japanese companies and a Taiwanese university, as well as a rover built by ispace's European subsidiary. Shares in ispace fell nearly 30% in trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Friday.
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