Employees of 'ispace' wait for the signal from the touchdown of its lunar lander Resilience on the Moon at a venue to watch its landing in Tokyo, Japan on 06 June 2025. Photograph: Manami Yamada/Reuters
An attempt to land a commercially built spacecraft on the surface of the moon looked to have ended in failure on Thursday, two years after its predecessor, launched by the same Japanese company, crashed following an uncontrolled descent.
Resilience, an un-crewed vehicle from the Tokyo company ispace, would have made history as the first non-US commercial lander to make a successful touchdown, scheduled for 3.17pm ET Thursday (4.17am JST Friday) at Mare Frigoris (the Sea of Cold) in the far north of the moon.
