A SpaceX rocket carrying two lunar landers, including Ispace’s Resilience and Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost, launched from Florida nearly five months ago. The Blue Ghost spacecraft successfully landed upright on the lunar surface in March, marking a historic moment for commercial spaceflight.
Ispace’s Resilience lander is now en route to its destination, with a scheduled touchdown attempt at 3:24 p.m. ET on Thursday. The company’s low-energy transfer approach, which takes several months, offers long-term advantages such as verifying systems and reducing wear on instruments during transit.
However, the approach also comes with challenges, including increased exposure to radiation and temperature fluctuations. Ispace will abandon this method for its third mission, opting for a more direct route to the moon instead.
Resilience is carrying a suite of science instruments, including an algae-based food production module, a deep-space radiation monitor, and a water electrolyzer experiment. If successful, the lander’s descent into Mare Frigoris, a 750-mile-long plain in the moon’s far northern reaches, will mark a major milestone for commercial lunar landers.
Ispace plans to livestream Thursday’s touchdown attempt on YouTube and X, with the company hoping to become the first non-US commercial entity to successfully land on the moon. The successful landing of Resilience would join Firefly Aerospace in becoming one of only two companies to complete a fully successful touchdown of a robotic lunar lander.
Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/06/04/science/ispace-moon-landing-attempt-journey