Private Japanese Lunar Lander Crashes Into Moon's Surface

Resilience, a lunar lander produced by the Japanese aerospace firm Ispace, has crashed into the Moon's surface. The lander was Ispace's second failed attempt at placing a spacecraft on the Moon; a third will follow in 2027.

After launching into space on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in January and spending nearly six months on a gravity-fueled journey toward the Moon, Resilience was poised to land Thursday afternoon (early Friday morning in Japan). If all went well, the lander would touch down near the center of Mare Frigoris, a lunar sea near the Moon's north pole.

But all did not go well. One minute and 45 seconds before Resilience's scheduled touchdown, mission control abruptly lost communication with the spacecraft. In the minutes immediately following the scheduled landing (3:17 p.m. EST, or 4:17 a.m. JST), Ispace terminated its live stream, noting that it ...