HAKUTO-R Series 2

Mission specifications

Operator

ispace

Prime contractor

ispace

Launch

2025-01-15

Landing

2025-06-05

Landing site

Mare Frigoris (center; hard landing)

Customer

private

Payload

Tenacious micro-rover (5 kg, ispace EU) + 5 commercial payloadsas of 2025-06-05^[1]

Key findings

• 1.The RESILIENCE lander launched 15 Jan 2025 on a Falcon 9, entered lunar orbit on 6 May 2025, and circularized to a ~100 km orbit on 28 May 2025, completing its planned pre-landing milestones before the descent.
• 2.Targeted a touchdown in Mare Frigoris scheduled for 19:17 UTC on 5 June 2025, carrying the ~5 kg 'Tenacious' micro-rover built by ispace's European (Luxembourg) subsidiary — with a scoop and the artwork 'Moonhouse' — plus five commercial payloads.
• 3.Telemetry was lost during the final descent, roughly 90 seconds before the scheduled touchdown; the lander was still descending at about 42 m/s at an altitude of ~192 m when contact was lost, and it made a hard landing rather than a controlled one.
• 4.ispace's 24 June 2025 technical analysis isolated the cause to a Laser Range Finder (LRF) anomaly: the LRF's ranging performance degraded during descent, so it updated altitude and velocity too slowly and the lander could not decelerate enough before impact.
• 5.NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter imaged the impact site on 11 June 2025, showing a dark smudge and surrounding halo consistent with the crash; ispace's review ruled out propulsion and power as causes.

Mission outcome

Resilience (HAKUTO-R Mission 2) was ispace's second lunar landing attempt and, like the first, reached lunar orbit and completed its pre-landing milestones before failing at touchdown on 5 June 2025. The lander lost telemetry during final descent, about 90 seconds before its scheduled landing — still travelling roughly 42 m/s at an altitude near 192 m — and made a hard landing in Mare Frigoris; ispace's subsequent analysis pinned the cause on a degraded Laser Range Finder that failed to deliver timely altitude data during descent, so the craft could not slow enough before impact. NASA's LRO documented the impact site, and the failure — the company's second consecutive landing loss — became a key input to the design and testing of ispace's larger APEX-class Mission 3 lander.