Resilience, ispace's second lunar lander, had problems measuring its distance to the surface and could not slow its descent fast enough.

A private lunar lander from Japan has crashed into the moon. The Tokyo-based company ispace declared the mission a failure several hours after communication was lost with the lander on Friday.

Tokyo-based ispace Inc.’s second lunar lander attempt failed after it lost contact, a blow to Japan’s burgeoning commercial space industry.