“We’re very proud of Carlos, Abigail and Julien for this achievement and we know they are the optimal choice to serve ESA in this mission,” said Takeshi Hakamada, Founder & CEO of ispace. “Likewise, we’re honoured at ispace to play a role in the realisation of space resource utilisation in the very near future.”
“It’s a real privilege for our team to support ESA in this exciting endeavour,” said Julien-Alexandre Lamamy, ispace Europe’s Managing Director. “We hope that ispace Europe’s role in this mission will be an important factor in positioning ESA at the frontline of the space resources arena.”
ispace is a lunar exploration company with a vision to extend human presence to outer space. The company is developing a small commercial lunar lander and miniature lunar rovers to delivery customer payloads to the Moon and explore the lunar surface. ispace aims to be a vehicle for companies on Earth to access new business opportunities on the Moon and ultimately incorporate the Moon into Earth’s economic and living sphere. The company will land its first lander on the Moon in 2021 as part of its “HAKUTO-R” program—the world’s first commercial lunar exploration program. The missions for HAKUTO-R will launch on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. ispace has operations in Japan, the United States, and Europe, and has signed partnerships with JAXA and the Government of Luxembourg. ispace was the managing company for Team HAKUTO, one of the 5 finalists in the Google Lunar XPRIZE competition. For more information, visit http://www.ispace-inc.com/
Our 3 new Corporate Partners were showcased in yesterday's morning edition of Asahi Shimbun, a leading newspaper in Japan and one of HAKUTO-R's Media Partners!😆
via Asahi Shimbun
Utilizing its know-how in making small and lightweight, but safe and reliable vehicles, Suzuki Motor Corp will contribute its expertise in structural analysis toward the development of the HAKUTO-R lunar lander...
Citizen Watch will apply its Super Titanium™ material to the HAKUTO-R lunar lander and lunar rover. Citizen will procure titanium material and process it using its proprietary technology to make the titanium hard and durable...
Sumitomo Corp celebrates its 100th anniversary this year and partners with HAKUTO-R as it looks toward the next 100! Sumitomo will promote collaboration among various stakeholders to encourage growth in the lunar industry thru its new open innovation lab, Mirai Lab Palette...
@ispace_inc also announced its adjusted mission schedule for the HAKUTO-R Program: Mission 1 will perform a soft landing on the Moon in 2021 and Mission 2 will land on the Moon and deploy a rover for exploration in 2023! 🚀
We're making good progress! Last month, ispace's Avionics team, who look after the lander's electronic systems, successfully completed Thermal Vacuum Testing. The objective of the test is to verify thermal stability and if a unit will behave in space as predicted. (1/4)
In the vacuum of space, heat cannot be removed by convection, in which heat rises, but instead, by radiation or by conduction, in which heat flows from a warmer object to a cooler object. We need to verify the lander electronic units are compatible in this environment. (2/4)
In this test, the engineers put one of the lander's main computers and some interface boards in a sealed chamber which pumps out air to create a vacuum and then cycled between hot and cold temperatures. The units passed the test! (3/4)
By creating a simulated space vacuum and testing under temperatures as they would be in space, we can make sure equipment will operate as it should before we launch the lander into space!🚀 (4/4)
Last week, Takeshi Hakamada, Founder & CEO of @ispace_inc addressed an audience of 1,000+ at @WebSummit to share our company's vision to expand industry to the Moon and how several of HAKUTO-R's partners are taking those "first steps". Full video here:
Ispace reveals the final design of its lunar lander ahead of its first mission to the moon in 2022Darrell EtheringtonTechCrunch July 30, 2020Japanese new space startup ispace has revealed the final design of its HAKUTO-R lunar lander, a spacecraft set to make its first touchdown on the moon in 2022 if all goes to the updated plan (it had been set to fly in October 2021 until today).
Today ispace announced that its first mission to the Moon will now launch in 2022, still on a Falcon 9 rocket. The smaller spacecraft will still carry 30kg to the Moon but follow a longer, three-month track to get there. ArianeGroup will build propulsion system.
Do the six peripheral “assist engines” appear to anyone else to be asymmetrically canted away from the center of mass?What’s with that?
Does anybody know of a site that compares the dimensions and masses of the current crop of robotic lunar landers? I'm interested in the ones from Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines, and the Israeli and Indian ones.I've seen an indication that the Surveyor lander was 3.5 meters in height, which makes it a lot higher than this ispace lander, although it's just a bit confusing.
