Japan's Resilience lunar probe reaches the Moon, but there is no communication.

The Japanese probe Resilience has reached the Moon, but it is unknown whether it successfully landed. This was the second attempt by the Japanese company iSpace to reach the moon's surface. It landed at 9:15 p.m., but minutes later, the company announced that there was no communication with the probe and that they would report back. On board was the first European rover, called Tenacious.

The Resilience spacecraft was developed by the Japanese company Ispace and carries Europe's first lunar exploration robot, called Tenacious.

This was the company's second attempt to successfully land on the satellite. Its first craft, Hakuto-R, lost communication moments before landing in April 2023. A year later, the Japanese Space Agency successfully landed its Slim lunar probe , albeit with serious problems stabilizing it. This means that, so far, only five countries have managed to reach the satellite: the United States, the Soviet Union, China, India, and Japan.

Ispace's stated goal is to become a pioneer in the commercial exploitation of the Moon's mineral resources and be key to future manned bases on the satellite. The company has opened a European subsidiary in Luxembourg, a country that is also one of the most advanced on the continent in projects for the commercial exploitation of mineral resources in space. "Our goal is to build a cislunar economy, one in which the Moon and Earth are economically and socially connected. We see the successful moon landing as just one step toward that goal," said Takeshi Hakamada, the company's CEO, in a statement.

The director of this second mission is Ángel Milagro , a Spanish engineer who has worked for the Japanese company since 2021.

The European rover was designed and built by the European subsidiary of iSpace with funding from the Luxembourg Space Program. It is a small, five-kilogram, four-wheeled vehicle that will use a robotic scoop to collect lunar regolith and deliver it to NASA for study.

The mission also carries other payloads developed by companies. Among them, a device to split water and produce oxygen and hydrogen, a key step toward exploiting lunar ice reserves to make rocket fuel in the future. A second module will test the cultivation of algae as a possible food for astronauts.

The European Space Agency (ESA) is providing mission communications. Three 35-meter antennas located in Spain, Argentina, and Australia, plus a 15-meter antenna in French Guiana, will track the spacecraft as it approaches the surface, receiving the crucial telemetry that iSpace needs to confirm a successful landing. If all goes well, Resilience will spend approximately two weeks conducting experiments on the lunar surface.

This mission was launched in January aboard a SpaceX rocket. Traveling alongside it was another private American mission, Blue Ghost, which landed successfully in March , laying the groundwork for private exploration of the satellite. The Japanese craft's trajectory was much longer to save energy.

The company iSpace has already secured other contracts for future missions to our satellite. One of these is with NASA , worth $55 million, to land near the lunar south pole with nearly 100 kilos of scientific equipment. The ESA has also entrusted the company with the mission to carry the future Magpie mission to the Moon for the exploration of polar ice, for a value of approximately €2.5 million.

Ispace's origins lie in relative failure. Its goal was to win the $20 million Lunar X Prize launched by Google for the first company capable of landing on the Moon and moving 500 meters across its surface. The award was declared vacant in 2018 after none of the candidates achieved their goal.

One of the contenders was Beresheet , a probe designed by three Israeli engineers that crashed in 2019. It was a disappointing end to an investment of nearly €90 million. That project was Israel's attempt to become the fourth country to successfully land on the Moon, after the US, Russia, and China. Ultimately, India succeeded in 2023.

New private missions to the Moon should pave the way for the arrival of astronauts and the future creation of orbital and surface bases, a project led by the United States with the European Space Agency as one of its main partners. All this has changed radically since Donald Trump came to power. The new budget for the US space agency, designed by the Trump administration, which must still be approved by Congress, cancels the lunar orbital station project, Gateway , a major blow to Europe.

The 2026 budget provides significant funding for changing the course of manned space exploration. The program maintains the arrival of astronauts to the satellite for the first time in 50 years as part of the Artemis 3 mission, which is scheduled to take off in mid-2027. But from then on, new projects are being promoted to begin carrying out missions to Mars with the idea of ​​taking astronauts to the red planet, which is the direction promoted by businessman and former government employee Elon Musk . The cuts would also leave the new European Mars exploration rover Rosalind Franklin on Earth due to a lack of a rocket, which already had to be postponed following the split with Russia over the Ukrainian War.

Faced with this uncertainty, ESA has chosen to remain cautious. Josef Aschbacher , director of the agency, said in a statement : “NASA has informed ESA about the Budget Request, and while some questions remain about the full implications, follow-up meetings are already underway.” “ESA remains open to cooperating with NASA on the programs targeted for reduction or cancellation and is assessing the impact together with our Member States in preparation for the ESA Council meeting in June,” he added.

Meanwhile, China, the West's greatest competitor in the lunar conquest, is moving forward with its plans to send astronauts to the satellite before 2030.