iSpace, the Lunar Payload Service, and the First Space Mission to the Moon: A Race for the Moon and Other Private Missions
The mission, carrying the United Arab Emirates’ first rover, is aiming to be the first of several private ventures to land on the lunar surface next year.
M1 will use Earth and the Sun to guide it to the Moon. This requires less propellant than taking a direct route, meaning that M1 can carry a heavier payload for the same launch costs. Ujiie wouldn’t say the mission’s price tag.
At least two other landers supported by NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services programme will launch early next year and take a more direct route. The first mission by the US firm Intuitive Machines is likely to launch in March of 2023 and take six days to reach the moon. “It will be a race,” is how a specialist at the European Space Resources Innovation Centre describes the race. “It’s going to be really fun to watch.”
The Moon has become a popular destination among national space agencies and private companies. The success of the missions by ispace and other firms will be a “huge, important step to developing the lunar ecosystem”, says Ryo Ujiie, chief technology officer at ispace. This system is ultimately geared towards harvesting water on the Moon. Some companies hope that lunar water can be used to produce rocket fuel that could eventually make Solar System exploration cheaper.
A successful mission for a private company funded by its customers will be “pretty exciting”, because it will show that the model works, opening the door for other firms, says Calzada Diaz, who previously worked at ispace. And research is likely to benefit, she adds. “Just knowing that it’s easier, faster and possible to go to the Moon more often is already important for science.”
Lunar Landing Mission iSpace: Launching the Moon with the First Private Lunar Rover in CAPE CANRAL, Fla
After it lands on the Moon, the lander will be able to perform an automated landing, which will see it attempt a soft landing on the lunar surface.
The site — which is mostly flat and boulder-free — was mainly chosen because it is relatively low risk to land on. Calzada Cruz says that scientists don’t have enough data from the Moon to make any new location interesting.
Rashid is part of a ramp-up in the UAE’s space ambitions after the launch of its Hope probe, which is orbiting Mars. Unusually for a space mission, it has been delivered well ahead of the deadline. Building the rover in such a short time required rapid prototyping, says Al Marqoozi. “We went through five modules until we reached the one that is now ready to launch,” he adds.
Four Langmuir probes are used in the rover to map the temperature and density of charged particles that affect the dust on the lunar surface. One of the cameras will be used to study the lunar soil, which is called regolith, while the thermal imager will look over the landing site.
Finally, samples of various materials — such as graphene-based composites — will be attached to the rover’s wheels to test how they fare in the harsh lunar environment, which will inform future exploration, says Al Marzooqi. Future rover and robot development could be improved by collecting the data that we will.
The Japanese Space Agency is sending an orange-sized sphere to the moon that will be turned into a wheeled robot. Also flying: a solid state battery from a Japanese-based spark plug company; an Ottawa, Ontario, company’s flight computer with artificial intelligence for identifying geologic features seen by the UAE rover; and 360-degree cameras from a Toronto-area company.
Founded in 2010, ispace was among the finalists in the Google Lunar XPRIZE competition requiring a successful landing on the moon by 2018. The moon rover built by ispace never went into the air.
CAPE CANRAL, Fla. A Tokyo company aimed for the moon with its own private lander Sunday, blasting off atop a SpaceX rocket with the United Arab Emirates’ first lunar rover and a toylike robot from Japan that’s designed to roll around up there in the gray dust.
The company’s craft was designed so that it could use minimal fuel to save money. It will fly a million miles from Earth to the moon, and then circle back and intersect with the moon by the end of April.
By contrast, NASA’s Orion crew capsule with test dummies took five days to reach the moon last month. Sunday is the end of the lunar flyby mission.
The Atlas crater on the northeastern part of the moon is about 1 mile (2 kilometers) deep and will be the focus of the ispace lander. The lander is more than 7 feet tall with its four legs extended.
Hitching a ride on the rocket was a small NASA laser experiment as it traveled to find ice in the permanently shadowed craters of the lunar south pole.
The ispace mission is called Hakuto, Japanese for white rabbit. White rabbits are said to live on the moon in Asian folklore. A third lunar landing by the private company is planned in 2025.
Another finalist, an Israeli nonprofit called SpaceIL, managed to reach the moon in 2019. The Beresheet did not gently land on the moon, and it was destroyed.
With Sunday’s predawn launch from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, ispace is now on its way to becoming one of the first private entities to attempt a moon landing. Although not launching until early next year, lunar landers built by Pittsburgh’s Astrobotic Technology and Houston’s Intuitive Machines may beat ispace to the moon thanks to shorter cruise times.
Only Russia, the U.S. and China have achieved so-called “soft landings” on the moon, beginning with the former Soviet Union’s Luna 9 in 1966. The U.S. has put 12 men on the lunar surface, less than any other nation.
NASA’s Apollo moonshots were all “about the excitement of the technology,” said ispace founder and CEO Takeshi Hakamada, who wasn’t alive then. Now, “it’s the excitement of the business.”
Echoes of the sonic booms as the first-stage booster came back to Cape Canaveral eight minutes after launch: a first look
The sonic booms echoed through the dark as the first-stage booster came back to Cape Canaveral eight minutes after launch.