| Welcome to our roundup of top SpaceNews stories, delivered every Friday! This week, ispace's Resilience lunar lander crashes into the moon, Isaacman says his NASA administrator nomination was pulled over Trump's feud with Elon Musk, Trump threatens SpaceX's government contracts and more.
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| | | | | OUR TOP STORY
| | By Jeff Foust Resilience, the second mission by Japanese company ispace, likely crashed attempting a landing on the moon June 5.
Resilience was scheduled to land at 3:17 p.m. Eastern at Mare Frigoris, a region at about 60 degrees north latitude on the near side of the moon. Once on the surface, the lander was designed to operate for a lunar day, or about two weeks, until sunset causes the solar-powered lander to shut down.
While ispace said the initial phases of the landing attempt went as planned, telemetry displayed on the company's webcast indicated that the lander reached the surface about one minute and 45 seconds before the scheduled landing time, with a reported speed of 187 kilometers per hour, far too fast for a safe landing. Telemetry was then lost, or no longer displayed, and the company ended the webcast about 25 minutes later with no updates on the lander's status.
| | | | | | | CIVIL
| | Isaacman, whose nomination to lead NASA was pulled by the White House, said on a podcast the rescission was because of his ties to Elon Musk, who had a public falling out with President Trump.
Ted Cruz, the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee unveiled a proposal to add $10 billion to a budget reconciliation bill to offset changes to NASA human spaceflight and exploration programs in the administration's budget proposal.
The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, the organization that operates the International Space Station National Lab, announced June 4 that it was cancelling the upcoming ISS Research and Development Conference that was scheduled for the end of July in Seattle following NASA pulling support for the event.
| | POLICY & POLITICS
| | An escalating feud between President Trump and Elon Musk June 5 included threats to cancel SpaceX contracts and decommission spacecraft, although those words have yet to become actions.
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who sits on the Armed Services Committee, introduced the Quad Space Act, a bill aimed at strengthening strategic coordination in space among the United States, Australia, India, and Japan — the four nations of the informal Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or "Quad."
The Space Act comes as the European Union ramps up space sovereignty efforts amid shifting geopolitical winds, including through ReArm Europe, a more than $900 billion increase in defense spending to reduce reliance on the United States. | | | | | | | COMMERCIAL
| | Impulse Space announced June 3 it closed a $300 million Series C round led by a new investor, Linse Capital. Another new investor, DFJ Growth, also participated in the round as well as many returning investors.
The U.S. Space Force awarded Jacobs Technology a contract worth up to $4 billion over 10 years to provide engineering and technical services at the nation's primary space launch ranges. The award is part of the military's goal to modernize aging infrastructure and boost capacity amid a surge in commercial space activity. | | | | | | | SPONSORED |  | | By SITAEL At SmallSat Europe 2025 in Amsterdam, Italy's SITAEL unveiled Empyreum, its next-generation small satellite platform equipped with the company's proprietary Spark electric propulsion system. In this exclusive interview, Chiara Pertosa – CEO of SITAEL and one of second-generation leader of Angel Holding – explains what makes Empyreum unique, how Italy is expanding its satellite manufacturing capabilities, and why achieving European technological independence is more urgent than ever. | | | | | | | OPINION
| | By Emma Gatti Interlune — a Seattle-based startup — announced a new agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE): they'll deliver helium-3, harvested from the moon, to Earth by 2029. The press release, which calls the deal a "historic agreement," explains that "Interlune will harvest three liters of helium-3 from the lunar soil and return it to Earth for the DOE and other customers using the fully operational infrastructure of its pilot plant on the moon's surface."
Founded in 2020 by former Blue Origin executives Rob Meyerson and Gary Lai, alongside Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt (the only geologist to have walked on the moon), Interlune has raised over $18 million in venture funding. Their roadmap includes robotic harvesters, a demonstration mission in 2027 and a pilot plant by 2029.
The press, predictably, has embraced the metaphor of a "lunar gold rush," suggesting the moon holds vast, untapped reserves waiting to be scooped up. But despite the hype, our knowledge of these "abundant" lunar resources is surprisingly thin.
| | By Nick Reese
By Jamie Munro
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