Japan's Resilience Lander Prepares for Moon Landing Next Month

Japan's private space explorer, ispace, is making strides as its Resilience lander now orbits the moon, aiming for a historic landing projected for early June. This development marks a significant step in commercial lunar exploration.

The Tokyo-based company announced Wednesday that Resilience has successfully entered lunar orbit. This pivotal moment marks the beginning of the countdown to its anticipated moon landing.

Launched aboard a SpaceX rocket in January, alongside Firefly Aerospace's lunar lander, Resilience is part of a wave of private missions venturing to the moon. While Firefly achieved its milestone landing in March, becoming the first private entity to land on the moon without mishap, Intuitive Machines also reached the lunar surface, though its lander tipped into a crater.

With its second lunar mission underway, ispace is poised to achieve what its first endeavor, which ended in a crash in 2023, could not. Resilience's payload includes a mini rover equipped to collect lunar soil samples and conduct various experiments, promising new insights into the moon's surface composition.

(With inputs from agencies.)