Japanese space exploration company Ispace confirmed its Resilience lunar lander had successfully completed all planned orbital adjustments around the Moon and is now preparing for a critical landing attempt scheduled for early Friday morning, The Japan Times reported.
In an official statement released on Saturday, the company outlined that the spacecraft would commence its descent from a circular lunar orbit at precisely 3:20 a.m. JST on Friday, autonomously activating its main propulsion system to gradually reduce speed and altitude during the approach.
The mission aims to achieve a soft touchdown near Mare Frigoris (Sea of Cold) in the Moon’s northern hemisphere. This represents Ispace’s second bid for a successful lunar landing following the failure of its Hakuto-R Mission 1 in April 2023.
A comprehensive post-mission analysis attributed that failure to a software malfunction causing the lander to miscalculate its altitude, resulting in impact from approximately 5 kilometres above the lunar surface.
Founder and CEO Takeshi Hakamada expressed measured confidence in the upcoming operation. He further emphasised the incorporation of lessons learned, stating:
We have leveraged the operational experience gained in Mission 1 and during this current voyage to the moon, and we are confident in our preparations for the success of this lunar landing.
The Hakuto-R Mission 2 carries a scientifically and culturally significant payload manifest: the Tenacious microrover, developed partially with the European Space Agency; a lunar water electrolysis system to test potential resource utilisation technologies; a module designed for food production experiments in the space environment; and a deep-space radiation sensor for monitoring the radiation environment.
The Mission will also have the Memory Disc, a collaborative project with UNESCO and US-based innovation platform Barrelhand. The disc archives 275 world languages and cultural artefacts for preservation on the lunar surface.
Resilience launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on 15 January aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, sharing the ride with Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander. While Blue Ghost successfully landed on 2 March and operated until 16 March 14, Resilience entered lunar orbit on 7 May, setting the stage for this week’s landing attempt.
If successful, Ispace will join a select group of entities achieving a soft lunar landing and significantly advance the role of private companies in lunar exploration, contributing valuable data and experience towards future missions, including those under NASA’s Artemis programme aiming for sustainable human presence.
