Japan’s ispace Fails Again: Resilience Lander Crashes on Moon

Staff members and guests react as they watch the progress of Moon landing of Resilience, a Moon lander built by Japan-based startup ispace, during a live event in Tokyo, Japan, early 06 June 2025. (EPA)
Staff members and guests react as they watch the progress of Moon landing of Resilience, a Moon lander built by Japan-based startup ispace, during a live event in Tokyo, Japan, early 06 June 2025. (EPA)
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Japan’s ispace Fails Again: Resilience Lander Crashes on Moon

Staff members and guests react as they watch the progress of Moon landing of Resilience, a Moon lander built by Japan-based startup ispace, during a live event in Tokyo, Japan, early 06 June 2025. (EPA)
Staff members and guests react as they watch the progress of Moon landing of Resilience, a Moon lander built by Japan-based startup ispace, during a live event in Tokyo, Japan, early 06 June 2025. (EPA)

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 program 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% fall. As of the close of Thursday, ispace had a market capitalization of more than 110 billion yen ($766 million).

"We're not facing any immediate financial deterioration or distress because of the event," CFO Jumpei Nozaki said in the press conference, citing recurring investor support.

In 2023, ispace's first lander crashed into the moon's surface due to inaccurate recognition of its altitude. Software remedies have been implemented, while the hardware design was mostly unchanged in Resilience.

$16 MILLION PAYLOAD

Resilience was carrying a four-wheeled rover built by ispace's Luxembourg subsidiary and five external payloads worth a total of $16 million, including scientific instruments from Japanese firms and a Taiwanese university.

The lander had targeted Mare Frigoris, a basaltic plain about 900 km (560 miles) from the moon's north pole.

If the landing had been successful, the 2.3-meter-high lander and the rover would have begun 14 days of planned exploration activities, including capturing of regolith, the moon's fine-grained surface material, on a contract with US space agency NASA.

Resilience in January shared a SpaceX rocket launch with Firefly's Blue Ghost lander, which took a faster trajectory to the moon and touched down successfully in March.

Intuitive Machines, which last year marked the world's first commercial lunar touchdown, also landed its second Athena lander in March, although in a toppled position just as with its first mission.

Japan last year became the world's fifth country to achieve a soft lunar landing after the former Soviet Union, the United States, China and India, when the national Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency achieved the touchdown of its SLIM lander.

The government last year signed an agreement with NASA to include Japanese astronauts in Artemis lunar missions and has supported private companies' research projects for future lunar development, assuming ispace's transportation capabilities.

"Expectations for ispace have not faded," Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said in an X post.

Although ispace will likely remain Japan's most advanced lunar transportation company, some Japanese firms may start to consider transport options from foreign entities to test their lunar exploration visions, said Ritsumeikan University professor Kazuto Saiki, who was involved in the SLIM mission.

For its third mission in 2027, ispace's US unit is building a bigger lander as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services for the Artemis program. The company projects six more missions in the US and Japan through 2029.

"NASA increasingly needs private companies to improve cost efficiency for key missions with limited budgets," ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada said, referring to US President Donald Trump's proposed budget cuts.

"To meet NASA's expectations, we'll support our US subsidiary to keep up with development and play a role."



Bull Sharks Linger in Warming Sydney Waters

A man watches large waves on Bondi Beach in Sydney on July 2, 2025, as large swells and high winds hit the east coast of Australia. (Photo by SAEED KHAN / AFP)
A man watches large waves on Bondi Beach in Sydney on July 2, 2025, as large swells and high winds hit the east coast of Australia. (Photo by SAEED KHAN / AFP)
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Bull Sharks Linger in Warming Sydney Waters

A man watches large waves on Bondi Beach in Sydney on July 2, 2025, as large swells and high winds hit the east coast of Australia. (Photo by SAEED KHAN / AFP)
A man watches large waves on Bondi Beach in Sydney on July 2, 2025, as large swells and high winds hit the east coast of Australia. (Photo by SAEED KHAN / AFP)

Bull sharks are lingering off Sydney's beaches for longer periods each year as oceans warm, researchers said Friday, predicting they may one day stay all year.

The predators are migratory, swimming north in winter when Sydney's long-term ocean temperatures dip below 19 degrees Celsius (66 degrees Fahrenheit) to bask in the balmier waters off Queensland.

A team of scientists looked at 15 years of acoustic tracking of 92 tagged migratory sharks in an area including Bondi Beach and Sydney Harbour.

Records show the sharks now spend an average of 15 days longer off Sydney's coast in summer than they did in 2009, said James Cook University researcher Nicolas Lubitz.

"If they're staying longer, it means that people and prey animals have a longer window of overlap with them."

Shark attacks are rare in ocean-loving Australia, and most serious bites are from three species: bull sharks, great whites, and tiger sharks, according to a national database.

There have been more than 1,200 shark incidents around Australia since 1791, of which over 250 resulted in death.

Researchers found an average warming of 0.57C in Bondi for the October-May period between 2006 and 2024, said the study published in the peer-reviewed journal Science of The Total Environment.

Over a longer period, remotely sensed summer sea-surface temperatures in the area rose an average 0.67C between 1982 and 2024, they said.

"If this trend persists, which it likely will, it just means that these animals are going to spend more and more time towards their seasonal distributional limit, which currently is southern and central New South Wales," Lubitz said.

"So it could be that a few decades from now, maybe bull sharks are present year-round in waters off Sydney," he added.

"While the chances of a shark bite, and shark bites in Australia in general, remain low, it just means that people have to be more aware of an increased window of bull shark presence in coastal waters off Sydney."

Climate change could also change breeding patterns, Lubitz said, with early evidence indicating juvenile sharks were appearing in rivers further south.

There was some evidence as well that summer habitats for great whites, which prefer colder waters, were decreasing in northern New South Wales and Queensland, he said.

Tagged sharks trigger an alarm when they swim within range of a network of receivers dotted around parts of the Australian coast, giving people real-time warnings on a mobile app of their presence at key locations.