TOKYO: Japanese company ispace said its uncrewed moon lander likely crashed onto the lunar surface during its touchdown attempt on Friday, marking another failure two years after an unsuccessful inaugural mission.

Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace in making successful commercial moon landings amid a global race that includes state-run lunar missions from China and India.

Although the failure means another multi-year pause in Japan’s commercial access to the moon, the country remains committed to the US-led Artemis programme and a wide range of Japanese companies are studying lunar exploration as a business frontier.

Resilience, ispace’s second lunar lander, had problems measuring its distance to the surface and could not slow its descent fast enough, the company said, adding it has not been able to communicate with Resilience after a likely hard landing.

“Truly diverse scenarios were possible, including issues with the propulsion system, software or hardware, especially with sensors,” ispace Chief Technology Officer Ryo Ujiie told a press conference.

A room of more than 500 ispace employees, shareholders, sponsors and government officials abruptly grew silent when flight data was lost less than two minutes before the scheduled touchdown time during a public viewing event at mission partner Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp in the wee hours in Tokyo.

Shares of ispace were untraded, overwhelmed by sell orders, and looked set to close at the daily limit-low, which would mark a 29 per cent fall. At the close on Thursday, ispace had a market capitalisation of more than 110 billion yen ($766 million).

Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2025