Japan startup ispace fails again to put lander on Moon

Tokyo, June 6 (KYODO): Japanese startup ispace Inc. said Friday it again failed to become the country's first private company to make a lunar landing, following its first unsuccessful attempt in 2023.

The Tokyo-based company believes its lunar lander, Resilience, impacted the Moon's surface after failing to slow sufficiently during its descent.

"We would like to catch up as quickly as possible" with U.S. companies that have already achieved the feat, CEO Takeshi Hakamada told a press conference.

Resilience, transporting a rover and equipment to carry out experiments, lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Jan. 15 as part of a mission to reach the Moon's northern hemisphere. It attempted a touchdown at 4:17 a.m. on Friday, Japan time.

However, following the landing sequence, the company's mission control centre was unable to establish communication with the lunar lander, it said.

"As of 8 a.m. on June 6, 2025, mission controllers have determined that it is unlikely that communication with the lander will be restored," ispace said in a press release. "It has been decided to conclude the mission."

The company's first attempt to reach the Moon's northern hemisphere in April 2023 with a different spacecraft was unsuccessful.

U.S. company Intuitive Machines Inc. subsequently became the first private firm in the world to successfully send a spacecraft to the lunar surface in February 2024.

U.S. firm Firefly Aerospace Inc.'s lunar lander, launched in January aboard the same rocket as ispace's Resilience, touched down on the Moon on March 2. It took a different route from the ispace lander to reach the surface.