TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 31, 2025--
ispace, inc. (ispace) ( TOKYO: 9348 ), a global lunar exploration company, announced today that the RESILIENCE lunar lander has successfully completed all orbital maneuvers while in lunar orbit and is now being prepared for its landing attempt on June 6, 2025.
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This marks the completion of Success 8 milestone of Mission 2 “SMBC x HAKUTO-R Venture Moon.”
RESILIENCE conducted a lunar orbital control maneuver at 5:27 p.m. JST (08:27 UTC) on May 28, 2025, to move into a circular orbit around the Moon in accordance with the mission operation plan. The operation required an engine burn of approximately 10 minutes, the longest to date on Mission 2. Since then, the lander has been in a 100 km orbit around the Moon and completes a full orbit every 2 hours. After RESILIENCE completed the orbital control maneuver, ispace engineers in the Mission Control Center in Nihonbashi, Tokyo, Japan worked to confirm the precise orbit in advance of the landing sequence.
The RESILIENCE lander, which reached lunar orbit on May 7, 2025 (JST), orbited the moon in an elliptical orbit with a perilune (closest point to the moon) altitude of approximately 70 km and an apolune (farthest point from the moon) altitude of approximately 5,800 km. After performing three orbital control maneuvers, it reached a circular orbit around the moon at an altitude of approximately 100 km.
A lunar landing is scheduled for no earlier than June 5, 2025 (UTC) (June 6, 2025, JST). The RESILIENCE lander is scheduled to begin descent from its current circular orbit. During the descent phase, the lander will automatically fire its main propulsion system to gradually decelerate and adjust its attitude, with the goal of achieving a soft landing on the lunar surface.
“Having completed eight of 10 mission milestones, RESILIENCE is now ready to attempt a historic landing on the Moon, carrying not only the payloads of our customers but also the hopes of our employees, their families, our partners and all of our supporters,” said Takeshi Hakamada, Founder & CEO of ispace. “We have leveraged the operational experience gained in Mission 1 and during this current voyage to the Moon, and we are confident in our preparations for success of the lunar landing.”
LANDING EVENT LIVE STREAM DETAILS
ispace will host a global live stream event with coverage of RESILIENCE’s landing attempt on the Moon on June 6, 2025 (JST) (June 5, 2025, depending on location). The coverage will be broadcast in Japanese with English translation provided. Please see links below to watch.
Before the lunar orbit insertion, RESILIENCE completed all deep space orbital maneuvers on April 24, 2025, at 10:00 UTC, returning the lander from deep space near to the Moon 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 as well as the lunar flyby, known as Success 5. It has completed the low energy transfer orbit with completion of all deep space and lunar orbit maneuvers is preparing for the landing sequence.
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.
Mission 2 Payloads
On board the RESILIENCE lunar lander are commercial customer payloads including:
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 Jan. 15, 2025. It is currently scheduled to land on the Moon on June 6, 2025 (JST). During the mission, the TENACIOUS micro rover, developed by ispace Europe SA, is set to be deployed on the lunar surface to conduct a technological demonstration of regolith extraction as well as mobility on the lunar surface. Team Draper Commercial Mission 1 is also known as ispace’s Mission 3. Mission 3, debuting the APEX 1.0 lunar lander, is expected to launch in 2027. The company’s fourth mission, 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.
ispace Completes Success 8 of Mission 2 Milestones
WASHINGTON (AP) — A day after the audacious U.S. military operation in Venezuela, President Donald Trump on Sunday renewed his calls for an American takeover of the Danish territory of Greenland for the sake of U.S. security interests, while his top diplomat declared the communist government in Cuba is “in a lot of trouble.”
The comments from Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the ouster of Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro underscore that the U.S. administration is serious about taking a more expansive role in the Western Hemisphere.
With thinly veiled threats, Trump is rattling hemispheric friends and foes alike, spurring a pointed question around the globe: Who's next?
“It’s so strategic right now. Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place," Trump told reporters as he flew back to Washington from his home in Florida. "We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it.”
Asked during an interview with The Atlantic earlier on Sunday what the U.S.-military action in Venezuela could portend for Greenland, Trump replied: “They are going to have to view it themselves. I really don’t know.”
Trump, in his administration's National Security Strategy published last month, laid out restoring “American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere” as a central guidepost for his second go-around in the White House.
Trump has also pointed to the 19th century Monroe Doctrine, which rejects European colonialism, as well as the Roosevelt Corollary — a justification invoked by the U.S. in supporting Panama’s secession from Colombia, which helped secure the Panama Canal Zone for the U.S. — as he's made his case for an assertive approach to American neighbors and beyond.
Trump has even quipped that some now refer to the fifth U.S. president's foundational document as the “Don-roe Doctrine.”
Saturday's dead-of-night operation by U.S. forces in Caracas and Trump’s comments on Sunday heightened concerns in Denmark, which has jurisdiction over the vast mineral-rich island of Greenland.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in a statement that Trump has "no right to annex" the territory. She also reminded Trump that Denmark already provides the United States, a fellow member of NATO, broad access to Greenland through existing security agreements.
“I would therefore strongly urge the U.S. to stop threatening a historically close ally and another country and people who have made it very clear that they are not for sale,” Frederiksen said.
Denmark on Sunday also signed onto a European Union statement underscoring that “the right of the Venezuelan people to determine their future must be respected” as Trump has vowed to “run” Venezuela and pressed the acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, to get in line.
Trump on Sunday mocked Denmark’s efforts at boosting Greenland’s national security posture, saying the Danes have added “one more dog sled” to the Arctic territory’s arsenal.
Greenlanders and Danes were further rankled by a social media post following the raid by a former Trump administration official turned podcaster, Katie Miller. The post shows an illustrated map of Greenland in the colors of the Stars and Stripes accompanied by the caption: “SOON."
“And yes, we expect full respect for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” Amb. Jesper Møller Sørensen, Denmark's chief envoy to Washington, said in a post responding to Miller, who is married to Trump's influential deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.
During his presidential transition and in the early months of his return to the White House, Trump repeatedly called for U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland, and has pointedly not ruled out military force to take control of the mineral-rich, strategically located Arctic island that belongs to an ally.
The issue had largely drifted out of the headlines in recent months. Then Trump put the spotlight back on Greenland less than two weeks ago when he said he would appoint Republican Gov. Jeff Landry as his special envoy to Greenland.
The Louisiana governor said in his volunteer position he would help Trump “make Greenland a part of the U.S.”
Meanwhile, concern simmered in Cuba, one of Venezuela’s most important allies and trading partners, as Rubio issued a new stern warning to the Cuban government. U.S.-Cuba relations have been hostile since the 1959 Cuban revolution.
Rubio, in an appearance on NBC's “Meet the Press,” said Cuban officials were with Maduro in Venezuela ahead of his capture.
“It was Cubans that guarded Maduro,” Rubio said. “He was not guarded by Venezuelan bodyguards. He had Cuban bodyguards.” The secretary of state added that Cuban bodyguards were also in charge of “internal intelligence” in Maduro’s government, including “who spies on who inside, to make sure there are no traitors.”
Trump said that “a lot” of Cuban guards tasked with protecting Maduro were killed in the operation. The Cuban government said in a statement read on state television on Sunday evening that 32 officers were killed in the U.S. military operation.
Trump also said that the Cuban economy, battered by years of a U.S. embargo, is in tatters and will slide further now with the ouster of Maduro, who provided the Caribbean island subsidized oil.
“It's going down,” Trump said of Cuba. “It's going down for the count.”
Cuban authorities called a rally in support of Venezuela’s government and railed against the U.S. military operation, writing in a statement: “All the nations of the region must remain alert, because the threat hangs over all of us.”
Rubio, a former Florida senator and son of Cuban immigrants, has long maintained Cuba is a dictatorship repressing its people.
“This is the Western Hemisphere. This is where we live — and we’re not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operation for adversaries, competitors, and rivals of the United States," Rubio said.
Cubans like 55-year-old biochemical laboratory worker Bárbara Rodríguez were following developments in Venezuela. She said she worried about what she described as an “aggression against a sovereign state.”
“It can happen in any country, it can happen right here. We have always been in the crosshairs,” Rodríguez said.
AP writers Andrea Rodriguez in Havana, Cuba, and Darlene Superville traveling aboard Air Force One contributed reporting.
In this photo released by the White House, President Donald Trump monitors U.S. military operations in Venezuela, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (Molly Riley/The White House via AP)
