15 Jan, 2025

RESILIENCE Lander Embarks on Second Journey to Deep Space and the Moon 

TOKYO –January 15, 2025 – ispace, inc. (ispace) )(TOKYO: 9348), a global lunar exploration company, announced today that its RESILIENCE lunar lander has successfully deployed from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket following its launch at 1:11 a.m., Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025 (U.S. Eastern Time). The deployment at 7:44:24 UTC on Jan. 15, 2025, completes Success 2 of the Mission 2 Milestones.

A screen capture from the SpaceX livestream of the RESILIENCE lunar lander being deployed into space.

“Today’s launch and deployment are another significant achievement for ispace and all of our stakeholders,” said Takeshi Hakamada, Founder & CEO of ispace. “This marks the beginning of a new chapter for our company as we develop the cislunar economy and deliver our customers payloads to the lunar surface. Now RESILIENCE is on its second journey into deep space and to the Moon. We will provide updates as we achieve further success milestones.”

An image of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launching with the RESILIENCE lunar lander on board.

Mission 2 Milestones

ispace has released a transparent set of criteria known as Mission 2 Milestones between launch and landing and aims to achieve the success criteria established for each of these milestones. The results from this mission as part of the HAKUTO-R lunar exploration program, will be weighed and evaluated against the criteria and lessons learned will be incorporated into future missions already in development.

Payloads

On board the RESILIENCE lunar lander will be commercial customer payloads including:

• Water electrolyzer equipment: From Takasago Thermal Engineering Co.
• Food production experiment: A self-contained module from Euglena Co.
• Deep space radiation probe: Developed by the Department of Space Science and Engineering, National Central University, Taiwan
• Commemorative alloy plate: Developed by Bandai Namco Research Institute, Inc. and modeled after “Charter of the Universal Century” from the animation Mobile Suit Gundam UC
• TENACIOUS micro rover: Developed by ispace-EUROPE, this rover will explore the landing site, collect lunar regolith, and relay data back to the lander. It will be equipped with a forward-mounted HD camera and a shovel.
• Moonhouse: A model house by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg that will be mounted on the rover.

The RESILIENCE lander will serve as a cultural artifact, carrying a UNESCO memory disk that preserves linguistic and cultural diversity.

ispace is leveraging its global presence through its three business units in Japan, the U.S., and Luxembourg, for the simultaneous development of upcoming missions. Mission 2, featuring the RESILIENCE lunar lander, is led by ispace Japan and was launched on January 15, 2025. In this mission, TENACIOUS micro rover developed by ispace Europe SA to be deployed on the lunar surface to conduct technological demonstration of regolith extraction as well as mobility on the lunar surface Mission 3, debuting the APEX 1.0 lunar lander, is led by ispace-U.S. and is expected to launch in 2026.  Mission 6, which will utilize the Series 3 lander, currently being designed in Japan, is scheduled to be launched by 2027.

About ispace, inc. (https://ispace-inc.com)

ispace, a global lunar resource development company with the vision, “Expand our planet. Expand our future.”, specializes in designing and building lunar landers and rovers. ispace aims to extend the sphere of human life into space and create a sustainable world by providing high-frequency, low-cost transportation services to the Moon. The company has business entities in Japan, Luxembourg, and the United States with more than 300 employees worldwide. For more information, visit: www.ispace-inc.com and follow us on X: @ispace_inc.