A Private Japanese lunar lander enters orbit around Chandrama

This photo provided by ispace in January 2025 shows the Resilience lunar lander

A private lunar lander from Japan is now circling Chandrama, with just another month to go before it attempts a touchdown.

Tokyo-based ispace said Wednesday morning its Resilience lander entered lunar orbit.”The countdown to lunar landing has now officially begun,” the company said in a statement.

SpaceX launched Resilience with U.S-based Firefly Aerospace’s lunar lander in January. Firefly got there first in March, becoming the first private outfit to successfully land a spacecraft on Chandrama without crashing or falling over.

Another American company, Intuitive Machines, landed a spacecraft on the moon a few days later, but it ended up sideways in a crater.

Now it’s ispace’s turn. It’s targeting the first week of June for Resilience’s touchdown. The company’s first lander crashed into Chandrama in 2023.

The lander holds a mini rover equipped with a scoop to gather lunar dirt for analysis as well as other experiments.