The Tokyo-based company, ispace, confirmed the mission’s failure after losing dialogue with the lunar module. Flight controllers were unable to restore contact, leading to the termination of the mission.

According to reports, “The communications ceased less than two minutes before the planned landing of the spacecraft on the moon with a mini rover. Until then, the descent from the lunar orbit seemed to do well.”

Takeshi Hakamada, executive director and founder of ISPACE, expressed his regret, stating, “We have to take what has happened seriously.” He also apologized to everyone who contributed to the mission.

This marks Ispace’s second unsuccessful lunar attempt. The frist attempt,which occurred two years prior,resulted in a forced landing. The successor mission was named Resilience.

Resilience carried a rover designed to collect lunar soil, along with a miniature red house created by a Swedish artist, intended to be placed on the Moon’s surface.

As 2019, the Moon has become a target for private companies, though successes have been limited. Resilience launched from Florida in January and entered lunar orbit last month. It shared a ride with Spacex and Firefly aerospace’s Blue Ghost, which achieved a triumphant lunar landing in March, becoming the first private entity to do so.

Another Setback for Private Lunar Missions

“We have to take what has happened seriously.”

Another American company,Intuitive Machines,reached the Moon shortly after Firefly. However, their landing module crashed near the Moon’s South pole and was declared non-operational within hours.

Resilience was targeting the upper region of the Moon, specifically Mare Frigoris, also known as Mar del Cold. This area is characterized by a flat terrain with few rocks, featuring craters and old lava flows along the northern strip.

The plan was for Resilience, measuring 2.3 meters, to transmit images shortly after landing and deploy the rover onto the lunar surface. The ISPACE rover, named Tenacious, was manufactured with reinforced plastic, carbon fiber, and four wheels. Equipped with a high-definition camera and a shovel for collecting lunar soil for NASA, it was built in Europe.

Weighing only 5 kilograms, the rover was designed to remain close to the landing module, moving at a speed of less than one centimeter per second. It had the capability to travel up to one kilometer from the landing module and was intended to operate for two weeks, during the period of sunlight.

In addition to the scientific objectives,the mission included an artistic element. The rover was carrying a small red cabin with white trim and a green door, called Moonhouse by its creator, Mikael Genberg, with the intention of placing it on the lunar surface.

According to Takeshi Hakamada,the recent launch was “simply a springboard,” with a larger mission planned for 2027 involving NASA. Further missions are expected to follow.

Prior to the landing attempt, Hakamada stated that Ispace had learned from its previous failed mission, adding, “The engineers did everything possible” to ensure success this time.

Jumpei Nozaki, the financial director, affirmed the company’s commitment to continuing the lunar mission, regardless of the outcome.

Jeremy Fix, chief engineer of the American subsidiary of ISPACE, mentioned at a conference last month that Ispace, like other companies, faces financial constraints and cannot sustain repeated failures.

While the exact cost of the recent mission remains undisclosed, company representatives indicated that it was less expensive than the first mission, which exceeded $100 million.

Two other US companies, Blue Origin, led by Jeff Bezos, and Astrobotic Technology, also plan to land on the moon before the end of the year. Astrobotic’s first lunar module failed in 2024 and crashed into the Earth’s atmosphere.

For decades, governments were the primary participants in lunar exploration. To date, only five countries have successfully achieved robotic lunar landings: Russia, the United States, China, India, and Japan. Among these, only the United States has sent humans to the Moon, with 12 NASA astronauts landing between 1969 and 1972.

NASA plans to send four astronauts around the moon next year, followed by the first manned landing in over half a century, utilizing the Spacex Starship for transportation from lunar orbit to the surface. China also intends to land astronauts on the Moon by 2030.