Japan's ispace sets sights on 2027 comeback after second Moon mission fails

Successful lunar landings by private companies offer benefits for scientists, expert says

A model of the Resilience lunar lander, built by Japanese company ispace. AFP

Japanese company ispace plans to launch two more missions to land on the Moon in 2027, after its Resilience lander crashed into the lunar surface on Friday.

The Tokyo company confirmed that it lost communication with the lander moments before it was set to touch down. Engineers concluded that the spacecraft had a hard landing because of problems with a sensor responsible for measuring its distance from the surface.

Ispace’s US subsidiary is working on a larger landing vehicle, called Apex 1.0, which will be launched in 2027. Engineers in Japan are also working on a fourth mission, scheduled for the same year.

“Given that there is currently no prospect of a successful lunar landing, our top priority is to swiftly analyse the telemetry data we have obtained thus far and work diligently to identify the cause,” ispace founder Takeshi Hakamada said.

What went wrong?

On Friday, ispace's Mission 2 lander began its descent towards the lunar surface from an altitude of about 100km, firing its main engine as planned.

The spacecraft was confirmed to be nearly vertical, but then telemetry data was lost.

Engineers at the mission control centre in Tokyo did not receive confirmation of a safe landing.

An initial review found that the laser rangefinder, which tells the spacecraft how far it is from the ground, struggled to obtain valid readings during descent.

Without accurate distance measurements, the lander was unable to slow down, causing it to crash.

Ispace’s first landing vehicle suffered a similar fate in 2023, when a miscalculation in altitude estimation caused the spacecraft to crash into the Moon. It was carrying payloads from several countries, including the UAE's Rashid rover.

Future plans

The company will soon turn its attention to its two missions in 2027. Its Mission 3 vehicle will feature an upgraded lander with greater payload capacity and advanced guidance systems. The fourth mission will involve a lander called the Series 3.

Companies including ispace are carrying out lunar missions to create a business of transport services.

In January last year, US company Astrobotic launched its Peregrine lander, but a propellant leak scuppered the mission. The following month, Intuitive Machines said its Odysseus lander touched down on the Moon, before tipping over.

The company followed up with its Athena lander, which also landed on its side on the lunar surface.

A rendering of the Firefly Blue Ghost 2 mission. Photo: Firefly Aerospace

In March this year, Texas-based Firefly Aerospace became the first company to report a successful private lunar mission. Its Blue Ghost lander operated on the surface of the Moon for two weeks.

Anna Hazlett, founder of UAE-based space advisory firm AzurX, said commercial access to the Moon could transform the economics of lunar missions.

“A commercial lunar transport service lowers the barrier to entry for space agencies and research institutions,” she told The National. “It’s a shift from bespoke, typically government-led missions to scalable lunar logistics, much like what SpaceX did for low-Earth orbit.”

The push to reach the lunar surface is also expected to benefit researchers. “If I want to carry out a scientific experiment on the Moon, I will have to design the entire mission, propose it to a space agency, and the launch will be in about a decade from conception,” said Dr Dimitra Atri, an astrophysicist at New York University Abu Dhabi.

“In the case of private companies, I only need to focus on building my experiment and the company will deliver the payload to the Moon rather quickly.”