NASAs Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Images of Japans Failed Resilience Moon Lander
As the world continues to explore the mysteries of the moon, the number of spacecraft attempting to land on its surface has increased significantly in recent years. While some missions have been successful, others have met with tragic outcomes. The latest example is the June 5th attempt by the Japanese company ispace's Resilience lunar lander to land in the Mare Frigoris region of the moon's northern hemisphere.
The Resilience lunar lander was carrying a range of scientific experiments and Europe's first-ever lunar rover, named Tenacious, which was set to deploy an art piece known as "the Moonhouse" on the lunar surface. However, operators lost contact with Resilience around 100 seconds before its scheduled touchdown, leading to a catastrophic "hard landing" that likely tore the spacecraft apart and resulted in the loss of all its payloads.
On June 11th, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) captured the first satellite photos of the ruined lander, revealing a dark smudge on the lunar surface. The mark is likely regolith (the layer of dust and rock that blankets the lunar bedrock) that was displaced by the impact. On June 16th, ISRO's Chandrayaan-2 orbiter captured additional photos of the crash site, showing pieces of debris scattered around the area. Astronomy enthusiast Shanmuga Subramanian identified at least 12 different pieces of debris and shared images of them on social media.
Telemetry data from Resilience's final moments suggest that the lander's laser rangefinder experienced delays while measuring the probe's distance to the lunar surface. As a result, the lander was unable to decelerate sufficiently to reach the required speed for the planned lunar landing. In a news conference on June 24th, ispace finally confirmed that the laser rangefinder was at fault.
Resilience was not the first ispace lunar lander to attempt a landing on the moon. Its predecessor also likely crash-landed in April 2023 after the company lost contact with it in lunar orbit. However, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's SLIM lander (or "moon sniper") did successfully touch down on the moon in January 2024 and remained operational for several months, despite accidentally landing upside down.
The last few years have seen a sharp rise in the number of spacecraft attempting to land on the moon. U.S. companies have already attempted two lunar landings this year: Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost successfully touched down on the moon on March 2nd, and Intuitive Machine's IM-2 probe landed on its side and died 12 hours later on March 7th. In February 2024, Intuitive Machine's Odysseus lander became the first American spacecraft to land on the moon in more than 50 years but also ended up on its side. In August 2023, ISRO successfully landed Chandrayaan-3—India's first-ever lunar lander—near the moon's south pole. This spacecraft later detected
