ispace Plans Mission 2 – Launching Resilience Lander and Tenacious Robot to the Moon with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Rocket.
The Resilience and Tenacious Duo is scheduled to launch from the Space Coast in Florida, USA, as announced by ispace on September 12. “I am pleased to announce that the assembly of the Resilience lander has been completed. We are on track for the earliest launch planned for December. The landing site has been decided, and preparations for Mission 2 are progressing smoothly,” said Takeshi Hakamada, founder and CEO of ispace.
An ispace engineer inspecting the Tenacious exploration robot in the cargo bay of the Resilience lunar lander. (Photo: ispace).
The primary landing site of Resilience is near the Mare Frigoris, or the Cold Sea, located at 60.5 degrees North latitude and 4.6 degrees West longitude on the Moon. According to ispace, this site was selected based on technical and operational constraints, as well as scientific value. Criteria included continuous sunlight and communication capabilities with Earth. Several backup sites have also been arranged to ensure operational flexibility and scientific activities.
Mare Frigoris is a vast basalt plain in the northern part of the Moon. If successful, Mission 2 will mark the northernmost landing to date. The exact landing date has not been disclosed.
The Resilience lander will carry 5 payloads, including a water electrolysis device from Takasago Thermal Engineering, an independent module for food production experiments from Euglena, a deep space radiation detector from National Central University of Taiwan, and an alloy panel from Bandai Namco Research Institute.
The fifth payload is Tenacious, a compact exploration robot standing just 26 cm tall, developed by ispace’s subsidiary in Luxembourg. The robot is equipped with a front-mounted HD camera. It will also carry Moonhouse, a small red house with a white frame created by artist Mikael Genberg.
This mission is designed based on ispace’s approximately 1,000 kg HAKUTO-R lander and will be the company’s second attempt to land on the Moon. The first attempt in April 2023 failed due to the lander’s altitude sensor misidentifying a crater rim. The Resilience lander has undergone software upgrades and improvements based on experiences from the first mission.
Currently, Japan has successfully landed a spacecraft on the Moon, the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The spacecraft landed successfully in January, albeit tilted. According to JAXA’s announcement at the end of August, the spacecraft has since ceased operations.
ispace is also developing a larger lander for the future named Apex 1.0. This spacecraft is expected to launch in Mission 3 around 2026.
