Japanese company blames laser tool for its 2nd crash landing on the moon

Key Points

• ispace’s lunar lander Resilience crash-landed after its laser range finder mismeasured the distance to the Moon, causing a rapid descent of 138 feet per second and loss of contact.
• This marks ispace’s second failed lunar landing in two years, following a 2023 crash blamed on bad software during the final descent phase.
• Of seven recent private Moon landing attempts, only Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost has succeeded, with Blue Ghost and Resilience sharing a January SpaceX launch.
• Despite these setbacks, ispace plans a third Moon landing in 2027 in cooperation with NASA and is already preparing a fourth mission, aiming to rebuild trust and achieve future success.

A laser navigating tool doomed a Japanese company's lunar lander earlier this month, causing it to crash into the moon.

Officials for ispace announced the news from Tokyo on Tuesday. The crash landing was the second for ispace in two years.

This time, the company’s lander named Resilience was aiming for the moon’s far north in Mare Frigoris, or Sea of Cold. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter relayed pictures of the crash site last week where Resilience and its mini rover ended up as wreckage.

Company officials blamed the accident on the lander's laser range finder, saying it was slow to kick in and properly measure the spacecraft's distance to the lunar surface. Resilience was descending at a rapid rate of 138 feet (42 meters) per second when contact was lost, and crashed five seconds later, they said.

Bad software caused ispace's first lunar lander to slam into the moon in 2023. Like the latest try, the problem occurred during the final phase of descent.

Of seven moon landing attempts by private outfits in recent years, only one can claim total success: Firefly Aerospace's touchdown of its Blue Ghost lander in March. Blue Ghost launched with Resilience in January, sharing a SpaceX rocket ride from Florida.

Aside from Texas-based Firefly, only five countries have pulled off a successful lunar landing: the Soviet Union, the U.S., China, India and Japan. And only the U.S. has put astronauts on the moon, back during NASA's Apollo program more than a half-century ago.

Despite back-to-back losses, ispace is pressing ahead with its third moon landing attempt in 2027, with NASA cooperation, as well as a fourth planned mission. Extra tests and improvements will add as much as 1.5 billion yen (more than $10 million) to the development costs, officials said.

CEO and founder Takeshi Hakamada stressed that his company “has not stepped down in the face of setbacks" and is looking to regain customers' trust. Outside experts will join the accident review, and ispace will collaborate more closely with the Japanese Space Agency on technical matters.

“We’re firmly taking the next step toward our future missions,” he said in Japanese.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.