A Private Lander Homes In On North Side of the Moon

A private lunar lander from Japan is closing in on the moon, reports the AP, aiming for a touchdown in the unexplored far north with a mini-rover. The landing attempt by Tokyo-based company ispace on Friday in Japan is the latest entry in the rapidly expanding commercial lunar rush. The encore comes two years after the company's first moon shot ended in a crash landing. Its successor lander, Resilience, holds a rover with a shovel to gather lunar dirt, as well as a Swedish artist's toy-size red house that will be lowered onto the moon's dusty surface. Long the province of governments, the moon became a target of private outfits in 2019, with more flops than wins along the way.

Launched in January from Florida on a long, roundabout journey, Resilience entered lunar orbit last month. It shared a SpaceX ride with Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost, which reached the moon faster and became the first private entity to successfully land there in March. Resilience is targeting the top of the moon, a less forbidding place than the shadowy bottom. The ispace team chose a flat area with few boulders in Mare Frigoris, or the "Sea of Cold," a long and narrow region full of craters and ancient lava flows that stretches across the near side's northern tier.

Once settled with power and communication flowing, the 7.5-foot Resilience will beam back pictures, expected several hours or more after touchdown. It will be at least the weekend, according to ispace, before the lander lowers the piggybacking rover onto the lunar surface. Made of carbon fiber-reinforced plastic with four wheels, ispace's European-built rover—named Tenacious—sports a high-definition camera to scout out the area, as well as that aforementioned a shovel to scoop up lunar dirt for NASA. The rover, weighing just 11 pounds, will stick close to the lander, going in circles at a speed of less than an inch per second. It's capable of venturing up to two-thirds of a mile from the lander and should be operational throughout the two-week mission, the period of daylight.