A private Japanese lunar lander is now in orbit around the moon.
The Resilience spacecraft, which was built by the Tokyo-based company ispace, arrived at the moon on schedule Tuesday (May 6), keeping it on target for a historic touchdown try a month from now.
“First and foremost, we are extremely pleased that the Resilience lander successfully reached lunar orbit as planned today,” Takeshi Hakamada, ispace’s founder and CEO, said in a statement. “We will continue to proceed with careful operations and thorough preparations to ensure the success of the lunar landing.”
Resilience launched Jan. 15 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket along with another private moon lander — Blue Ghost, which was built and operated by Texas-based company Firefly Aerospace.
Blue Ghost took a more direct route to the moon, arriving in lunar orbit on Feb. 13 and touching down on Earth’s nearest neighbor on March 2. That was a historic moment; Blue Ghost became just the second private spacecraft to soft-land on the moon, after Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus craft in February 2024.
Resilience, by contrast, took its time, taking a low-energy, fuel-conserving path that featured a close lunar flyby on Feb. 14.
If all goes according to plan, Resilience will touch down on June 5 within Mare Frigoris (“Sea of Cold”), a basaltic plain in the moon’s northern hemisphere. A successful landing would be the second for Japan, whose national space agency put a spacecraft called SLIM (“Smart Lander for Investigating Moon’) down in January 2024.
Resilience is carrying five science and tech payloads. One of them is a miniature rover named Tenacious, which was built by ispace’s Luxembourg-based subsidiary.
Tenacious will collect some moon dirt under a contract with NASA. And the little rover is carrying a payload of its own — “Moonhouse,” a project by artist Mikael Genberg, which sits on Tenacious’ front bumper.
The June 5 landing try will be the second for ispace, which aims to help open the moon for further exploration and resource exploitation. The company’s first lunar lander successfully reached orbit in March 2023 but failed during its touchdown try that April.