Japan's lunar lander enters Moon's orbit, prepares for historic touchdown

The mission marks a critical step for Japan’s growing private space ambitions

TECHNOLOGY:

A privately developed Japanese lunar lander has successfully entered orbit around the moon, Tokyo-based ispace announced on Wednesday, marking a key step ahead of its planned landing attempt in early June.

The spacecraft, called Resilience, was launched aboard a SpaceX rocket in January and is now circling the moon after a months-long journey through space.

“The countdown to lunar landing has now officially begun,” ispace said in a statement. The firm hopes to become the first Japanese company to achieve a soft landing on the lunar surface.

The mission comes just over a year after ispace’s first lander crashed during descent in April 2023. This second attempt carries a miniature rover equipped with a scoop to collect and analyse lunar soil, alongside other scientific payloads.

If successful, it will join a growing list of recent moon missions by private companies. Firefly Aerospace became the first private firm to land upright on the moon in March. A few days later, Intuitive Machines also landed, though its craft came to rest on its side in a crater.

The Resilience lander is part of a broader wave of commercial moonshots fuelled by public-private partnerships and interest in lunar exploration as a stepping stone for future deep-space missions.