HAKUTO-R Mission 2 (Resilience)
HAKUTO-R Mission 2 (Resilience) — the second lunar lander from the Japanese company ispace, which crashed attempting to land. It launched on 15 January 2025 sharing a Falcon 9 with Firefly's Blue Ghost Mission 1, then took a slow, fuel-efficient path to the Moon. On 5 June 2025 it began its descent toward Mare Frigoris, the “Sea of Cold” in the far lunar north, but contact was lost about 90 seconds before touchdown. ispace's investigation concluded that the laser rangefinder used to measure altitude underperformed, so the lander never got valid altitude readings, failed to slow enough, and struck the surface at roughly 42 metres per second. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter later photographed the impact site. It was ispace's second landing failure after Mission 1 crashed in 2023, and it carried the small European-built rover TENACIOUS, which never reached the surface.
Key facts
Mission & specifications
Mission
- Operator
- ispace
- Launched
- January 15, 2025
- Status
- Lost
Trajectory
- Distance from the Sun
- 1.01 AU
- Distance from Earth
- 0.107 AU
- Distance from Venus
- 0.571 AU
Mission
Resilience carried its answer to failure in its name — and then failed anyway. It was the second Moon lander from ispace, a Japanese company chasing the first commercial soft landing by a non-American firm. Its predecessor, Mission 1, had crashed in 2023 when the lander's software, confused by flying over a crater rim, decided its own altitude readings must be wrong and ignored them, running out of fuel while hovering thousands of metres too high. Mission 2 was rebuilt around the lessons of that day. It launched on 15 January 2025, sharing a Falcon 9 with Firefly's Blue Ghost Mission 1. The two took very different roads: Blue Ghost flew a fast track and landed successfully in March, while Resilience took a long, looping, fuel-saving path that reached the Moon months later. On 5 June 2025 it began its descent toward Mare Frigoris, the “Sea of Cold” high in the lunar north. About ninety seconds before touchdown, the telemetry stopped. ispace's investigation pointed to the laser rangefinder — the sensor that measures height above the ground during the final descent. It underperformed, so valid altitude data arrived too late, and the lander never slowed enough; it struck the surface at around 42 metres per second. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter later photographed the dark smudge of the impact. Aboard was TENACIOUS, a small European-built rover meant to scoop lunar soil and carry a tiny artwork, a “Moonhouse”, across the plain — it never rolled. Two failures in a row is a hard place to be, but ispace kept its next missions on the calendar: in this business, resilience is less a guarantee than a job description.
- 2025Launch on a Falcon 9Launch
ispace's Resilience lifts off from Kennedy Space Center sharing the rocket with Firefly's Blue Ghost Mission 1, then takes a slow, low-energy route to the Moon.
- 2025Hard landing in Mare FrigorisMission end
Contact is lost ~90 seconds before touchdown; a laser-rangefinder anomaly leaves the lander without valid altitude data and it strikes the surface at ~42 m/s.
- 2025Cause identifiedMilestone
ispace's investigation attributes the crash to the laser rangefinder underperforming during descent — its second landing failure after Mission 1 in 2023.
Images
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