“Given the current lack of prospect for a successful lunar landing, our top priority is to quickly analyse the telemetry data obtained so far and work diligently to identify the cause,” said iSpace founder and CEO Takeshi Hakamada. “We will work to restore confidence by providing a report on the findings to our shareholders, payload customers, Hakuto-R partners, government officials, and all iSpace supporters.”

iSpace engineers at the Hakuto-R mission control centre in Nihonbashi, Tokyo, transmitted landing orders at 3.13am on 6 June 2025. The Resilience lander--carrying a small rover built in Luxembourg--then began its descent. It descended from an altitude of around 100km to around 20km, then successfully ignited its main engine as planned to begin deceleration. Although the lander’s attitude was confirmed as near vertical, telemetry was subsequently lost, and no data indicating a successful landing was received, even after the scheduled landing time.

“The lander was unable to decelerate sufficiently to reach the speed required for the planned lunar landing. Given these circumstances, it is currently assumed that the lander probably made a hard landing on the lunar surface,” confirms the company's official press release, published overnight in Luxembourg.

This is not the end of the adventure, however. During the evening, the founder also indicated that missions 3 and 4 were already being prepared with slightly larger vehicles that could carry more payload and that would not use the same route as this time. Instead of the four to five months to reach the moon, the journey would be made in one month.

This article was originally published in French.