Japanese company iSpace has announced a new date for the attempted landing of its Resilience lunar lander — June 5, 2024. The landing is scheduled to take place in the Mare Frigoris (“Sea of Cold”) region of the northern Moon. However, the company leaves space for maneuvering: in case of unfavorable conditions, there are three alternative locations and an additional window from June 6 to 8.
This is iSpace’s second attempt to reach the Moon. The company’s first vehicle in March 2023 crashed during landing, despite successfully reaching orbit. The Resilience spacecraft, launched on January 15, 2025, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, is now taking a longer route to the Moon than Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost, which successfully landed on the surface of our moon on March 2.
To date, the Resilience mission has passed 5 of the 10 planned milestones. On February 14, the spacecraft made a maneuver close to the Moon, approaching its surface at 8,400 km, and it is now returning to Earth to approach our natural satellite again. During the maneuver, the spacecraft sent back a spectacular photo of our moon as well as the Earth to which it is now heading.
According to iSpace founder Takeshi Hakamada, the mission’s success at this stage is the result of lessons learned from previous failures.
If all goes according to plan, Resilience will orbit the Moon on May 6 and then make a historic landing. After the descent, the vehicle will release the Tenacious micro-lunar rover. This robot, created by the European division of iSpace, will collect soil samples for NASA. There is also on board:
- radiation detector;
- experiment to grow algae (a potential food source for the colonies);
- three other technological cargoes.
The spacecraft is expected to enter lunar orbit on May 6. But competitors are not sleeping: on March 6, Intuitive Machines, the first private company in history to achieve a soft landing on the moon, will try to repeat the success with the new Athena module.
We previously reported on how NASA was looking for a new owner for the VIPER lunar rover.
According to Space
