Moon mission: Japanese company sends out moon landers

Status: 11.12.2022 12:12 p.m

It could be the first private moon mission that succeeds: The Japanese company ispace has sent the moon lander “Hakuto-R” on its way. The competition never sleeps, but ispace has completely different goals.

The long-term vision is a city on the moon: the Japanese company ispace has sent out a moon lander. The “Hakuto-R” lander took off from the Cape Canaveral cosmodrome on a Falcon 9 rocket from the US space company SpaceX.

After its arrival, “Hakuto-R” will spend two weeks in lunar orbit. With each orbit it should get closer to the surface of the moon, until it finally touches down in an area called the Atlas Crater. The gravitational forces of the earth and the sun are to be used for the propulsion. Landing is scheduled for late April 2023.

The lunar lander is 2.3 meters high and 2.6 meters wide with the landing legs extended. At launch it weighed 1,000 kilograms, but most of that is fuel burned along the way. When it touches down on the moon, the lander is said to weigh 340 kilograms.

“Hakuto-R” has international cargo on board, including a small rover from the United Arab Emirates and an even smaller two-wheeled robot from Japan’s state space agency Jaxa.

The HAKUTO-R lunar lander and lunar rover will be exhibited at Media Ambition Tokyo on February 21, 2019.

Image: picture alliance/AP Images

Two US companies in the starting blocks

If the landing on the moon works, it could be the first private moon mission. But two US companies are already in the starting blocks to start their own missions: Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines are planning their launches early next year. Because ispace plans a slower, fuel-efficient itinerary, they could land on the moon even faster.

That’s not so important to the founder and boss of ispace: “We don’t really care who lands first,” Takeshi Hakamada told the science magazine “New Scientist”. “Our vision is to create an economically viable lunar ecosystem.”

To this end, ispace plans to launch a lunar lander with its own rover in 2024 and launch a larger lander in 2025. One goal is to make money by transporting goods to the lunar surface.

However, the Japanese company has a completely different vision for the year 2040: a small town called “Moon Valley” where 1,000 people live and which attracts 10,000 visitors every year. Infrastructure and industry included, like a video on the company’s website indicates.

Private missions have failed so far

“Hakuto” means “white rabbit” in Japanese – in Japanese mythology this lived on the moon. The “R” stands for “Reboot”, i.e. for a restart. The “Hakuto” team has already participated in the “Google Lunar X” award, which was offered by Google in 2007 and in which many private companies took part. By the deadline in 2018, however, no company had managed to land on the moon.

In 2019, the Israeli organization Space IL launched the Beresheet probe to the moon. However, it failed shortly before the finish line because an important engine failed during the landing maneuver and communication with the probe was lost. She ended up crashing on the moon.

So far, only government programs have succeeded in landing on the moon. In the 1950s, during the Cold War, there was heated competition between the US and the former Soviet Union.

The Soviets were the first to land on the moon with an unmanned spacecraft in 1959. In 1969, the USA succeeded in Apollo 11, the first manned mission. Two years ago, China also sent a capsule to the moon and took rock samples.

After a long break, people are now supposed to fly to the moon again – with the US “Artemis” mission. Today the “Orion” space capsule is expected back on earth, which had flown off with the “Artemis 1” mission. With “Artemis 2” there should be a first manned flight around the moon, with “Artemis 3” finally another manned flight with moon landing.

source site