ispace Completes Success 8 of Mission 2 Milestones
June 2, 2025 | ispaceEstimated reading time: 2 minutes
ispace, inc. (ispace) (TOKYO: 9348), a global lunar exploration company, announced 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.
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.”
Testimonial
"Advertising in PCB007 Magazine has been a great way to showcase our bare board testers to the right audience. The I-Connect007 team makes the process smooth and professional. We’re proud to be featured in such a trusted publication."
Klaus Koziol - atgSuggested Items
I-Connect007 Editor’s Choice: Five Must-Reads for the Week
05/08/2026 | Marcy LaRont, I-Connect007This week, I’ve selected some outstanding interviews that you’ll want to take note of. First, is a roundtable discussion featuring three dynamic industry cybersecurity experts. Please watch this important discussion that affects us all. Following that, I spotlight the IPC-2581 Consortium, which explains why IPC-2581 is the standard to replace Gerber data for manufacturing. Next, I am including my interview with PCBAA and AAM, who collaborated to release a short documentary on U.S. PCB manufacturing.
A Necessary Shift From Gerber to IPC-2581
05/07/2026 | Tracy Riggan, Global Electronics AssociationIPC-2581 is an open, vendor-neutral data exchange standard developed by the Global Electronics Association to streamline the exchange of PCB design information across fabrication, assembly, and test. It replaces multiple legacy formats—including industry standards, Gerber, and ODB++—with a single, comprehensive, XML-based dataset that captures all manufacturing details.
ViaSat-3 F3 Satellite Successfully Launches from Kennedy Space Center
05/04/2026 | BoeingBoeing mission controllers confirmed that the ViaSat-3 F3 (VS-3 F3) satellite is healthy in orbit following its successful launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket at 10:13 a.m. ET from Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida.
Microchip Expands Post-Quantum Root of Trust Controllers
04/29/2026 | MicrochipAs the industry embarks on the transition to post‑quantum cryptography (PQC), Microchip Technology is expanding its portfolio of Trust Shield, PQC‑ready devices with the TS1800 Platform Root of Trust controller and the TS50x secure boot controller.
Is China Plus One Still Happening in the PCB Industry?
04/28/2026 | Manfred Huschka, Manfred Huschka Management Consulting (Shenzhen) Ltd.For much of the past five years, China Plus One has been shorthand for supply-chain diversification: reducing dependency on mainland China by adding manufacturing capacity elsewhere in Asia. In the PCB industry, however, in early 2026, it is more nuanced. It looks less like a clean geographic shift and more like a layered, capital-intensive rebalancing of global capacity, one that still leaves China deeply embedded at the center.