Japanese company ispace has published an image taken by the Resilience mission. It shows the vehicle against the background of the Moon.
Resilience is ispace’s second attempt to reach the Moon. In 2023, the company was very close to achieving this goal, but their Hakuto-R vehicle crashed due to a malfunction that occurred on the final section of the descent. Ispace did not accept failure and prepared a new lunar lander called Resilience.
Resilience measures 2.5 by 2.3 meters and has a dry mass of 340 kg. The vehicle is powered by solar panels. It carries on board several scientific instruments provided by various companies and scientific institutions, as well as a symbolic cargo in the form of a commemorative plate and a UNESCO memory disk containing 275 Earth languages.
Resilience also carries the 5-kilogram Tenacious micro-rover developed by ispace-EUROPA. It is 26 cm tall, 31.5 cm wide and 54 cm long. It is constructed of carbon fiber reinforced plastic and is equipped with an HD camera and shovel. Tenacious will use it to collect samples of regolith, which will then be photographed. Curiously, the micro-rover also carries a symbolic cargo — a small red house in a white frame, created by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg.
Resilience was launched on January 15. Since its fuel reserves were not enough to make a direct flight to the Moon, the vehicle was put on a more economical trajectory. Over the next 3.5 months, it performed several gravity maneuvers and course corrections that allowed it to enter a permanent orbit around the Moon. It happened on May 7.
The selfies published by ispace, were taken already after Resilience reached the moon. The lunar surface can be seen in the footage, as well as part of the vehicle, including the cover protecting Tenacious’s micro-rover.
Resilience is scheduled to land on the evening of June 5. The spacecraft should land in Mare Frigoris, located on the visible side of the Moon. Resilience is designed to operate for one lunar day (14 Earth days). Since the vehicle has no heaters, it is unlikely that it will be able to survive a cold lunar night.
