RESILIENCE Lunar Lander Injected into Lunar Orbit
ispace Marks Success 7 Milestone in SMBC x HAKUTO-R Venture Moon Mission
The RESILIENCE lunar lander developed by ispace has reached a significant milestone in its mission. The spacecraft has been injected into a lunar orbit after two months in space. This marks the completion of the Success 7 milestone of Mission 2 “SMBC x HAKUTO-R Venture Moon.”
We have successfully completed maneuvers so far by leveraging the operational experience gained in Mission 1 … We will continue to proceed with careful operations and thorough preparations to ensure the success of the lunar landing.”
Takeshi Hakamada, ispace
ispace engineers performed the injection maneuver from the Mission Control Center in Nihonbashi, Tokyo, Japan in accordance with the mission operation plan. The orbital maneuver required a main thruster burn lasting approximately 9 minutes, the longest to date during Mission 2. RESILIENCE is now maintaining a stable attitude in its planned orbit above the lunar surface. Mission operations specialists are now preparing for final orbit maneuvers after reaffirming ispace’s ability to deliver spacecraft and payloads into lunar orbit. A lunar landing is scheduled for no earlier than June 5, 2025 (UTC) (June 6, 2025, JST).
“First and foremost, we are extremely pleased that the RESILIENCE lander successfully reached lunar orbit as planned today,” said Takeshi Hakamada, Founder & CEO of ispace. “We have successfully completed maneuvers so far by leveraging the operational experience gained in Mission 1, and I am very proud of the crew for successfully completing the most critical maneuver and entering lunar orbit. We will continue to proceed with careful operations and thorough preparations to ensure the success of the lunar landing.”
Previously, RESILIENCE completed all deep space orbital maneuvers at 10:00 UTC on April 24, 2025, returning the lander from deep space near to the Moon in order to complete the orbit injection. At its furthest distance, RESILIENCE was 1.1 million kilometers from Earth. Before that RESILIENCE completed a lunar flyby, verifying operation of the main propulsion system, as well as the related guidance, control, and navigation system. Following the flyby, the lander continued its deep space journey, spending approximately two months in a low-energy transfer orbit.
RESILIENCE was launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 6:11:39 UTC, Jan. 15, 2025, and was successfully deployed from the rocket at 7:44:24 UTC. The RESILIENCE lander has completed the Earth orbit (Phase 1 in the figure) as well as the lunar flyby, known as Success 5. It has completed the low energy transfer orbit (Phase 2 in the figure) with completion of all deep space maneuvers and is now in lunar orbit.