iSpace Mission on Track for Lunar Orbit

Insider Brief

• ispace’s RESILIENCE lunar lander successfully completed all planned deep space orbital maneuvers recently, marking the sixth milestone in its Mission 2 campaign.
• The Tokyo-based company confirmed that the RESILIENCE lander has maintained stable attitude control and is on track to enter lunar orbit on May 7, following a successful flyby and navigation through a low-energy transfer trajectory.
• The mission carries multiple commercial and scientific payloads, including radiation sensors, a micro rover for regolith exploration, and a cultural artifact, positioning ispace as a key player in commercial lunar transport and technology demonstration.

PRESS RELEASE –ispace, inc. (ispace) (TOKYO: 9348), a global lunar exploration company, announced that its RESILIENCE lunar lander successfully completed all deep space orbital maneuvers on April 24, 2025, at 10:00 UTC (7:00 pm JST) in advance of a planned lunar orbit insertion. This marks the completion of Success 6 milestone of Mission 2 “SMBC x HAKUTO-R Venture Moon.”

ispace engineers performed the final orbit maneuver from the Mission Control Center in Nihonbashi, Tokyo, Japan in accordance with the mission operation plan. In total, the RESILIENCE lunar lander has completed 8 orbit control maneuvers. RESILIENCE is now maintaining a stable attitude in its planned orbit and mission operations specialists are now preparing for the Mission 2 milestone Success 7, “Entering Lunar Orbit.” The RESILIENCE lander is expected to enter lunar orbit on May 7, 2025.

“After successfully completing a lunar flyby and spending approximately two months smoothly navigating through space along with low-energy transfer orbit as we planned, the RESILIENCE lander has now completed all scheduled orbital control maneuvers,” said Takeshi Hakamada, Founder & CEO of ispace. “We are fully prepared to begin its final approach to the Moon. Over the next month and a half leading up to the landing, we will remain focused and dedicated to meeting the expectations of all those supporting us.”

Previously, RESILIENCE completed an orbital maneuver at 19:40:18 UTC, Jan. 16, 2025, at 250,000 kilometers from Earth, setting the lander on a course towards the Moon in order to complete the flyby and verifying operation of the main propulsion system, as well as the related guidance, control, and navigation system. The orbital maneuver required a main thruster burn lasting 16 seconds. Following this, the lander continued its deep space journey, spending approximately two months in a low-energy transfer orbit before reaching a distance of approximately 1.1 million kilometers from Earth, the farthest point from Earth.

RESILIENCE was launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 6:11:39 UTC, Jan. 15, 2025, and was successfully deployed from the rocket at 7:44:24 UTC. The RESILIENCE lander has completed the Earth orbit (① phase below) as well as the lunar flyby, known as Success 5. It now completing its low energy transfer orbit (② phase below) with completion of all deep space maneuvers. RESILIENCE will enter its next phase once it completes the lunar orbit insertion.

Mission 2 Milestones

ispace has released a transparent set of criteria known as Mission 2 Milestones between launch and landing and aims to achieve the success criteria established for each of these milestones. The results from this mission as part of the HAKUTO-R lunar exploration program, will be weighed and evaluated against the criteria and lessons learned will be incorporated into future missions already in development.

Mission 2 Payloads

On board the RESILIENCE lunar lander will be commercial customer payloads including:

• Water electrolyzer equipment: From Takasago Thermal Engineering Co.
• Food production experiment: A self-contained module from Euglena Co.
• Deep space radiation probe: Developed by the Department of Space Science and Engineering, National Central University, Taiwan
• Commemorative alloy plate: Developed by Bandai Namco Research Institute, Inc. and modeled after “Charter of the Universal Century” from the animation Mobile Suit Gundam UC
• TENACIOUS micro rover: Developed by ispace-EUROPE, this rover will explore the landing site, collect lunar regolith, and relay data back to the lander. It will be equipped with a forward-mounted HD camera and a shovel.
• Moonhouse: A model house by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg that will be mounted on the rover.

The RESILIENCE lander will serve as a cultural artifact, carrying a UNESCO memory disk that preserves linguistic and cultural diversity.

ispace is leveraging its global presence through its three business units in Japan, the U.S., and Luxembourg, for the simultaneous development of upcoming missions. Mission 2, featuring the RESILIENCE lunar lander, is led by ispace Japan and was launched on Jan. 15, 2025. In this mission, TENACIOUS micro rover developed by ispace Europe SA to be deployed on the lunar surface to conduct technological demonstration of regolith extraction as well as mobility on the lunar surface Mission 3, debuting the APEX 1.0 lunar lander, is led by ispace-U.S. and is expected to launch in 2026.  The company’s fourth mission, which will utilize the Series 3 lander, currently being designed in Japan, is scheduled to be launched by 2027.