Private Japanese lunar lander enters orbit around moon ahead of a June touchdown

A private lunar lander from Japan is now circling the moon, 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.

An image of the Moon taken on Feb. 15 by ispace’s Resilience lunar lander at an altitude of 8,972 miles.ispace via Business Wire

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 the moon 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 the moon in 2023.

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