Communications with Lander established after Launch
TOKYO—December 11, 2022—ispace, a global lunar exploration company, released a status update on its HAKUTO-R Mission 1 lunar lander, following a successful launch by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla., on December 11, 2022.
The HAKUTO-R Mission Control Center in Nihonbashi, Tokyo, confirmed that a stable communications link with the lander has been established.
Images: SpaceX
By completing launch and separation, “Success 2” of the Mission 1 Milestones has been achieved. By clearing this stage, the Series 1 lander has demonstrated its ability to withstand the extreme conditions of launch, validating its design and providing information that will be used in future development. After separation from the rocket, the Mission Control Center confirmed communication with the lander. Operations to establish a stable attitude, as well as stable power generation are in progress.
ispace will share updates on HAKUTO-R Mission 1 as they become available.
Mission 1 Milestones
For Mission 1, ispace has set 10 milestones between launch and landing, and aims to achieve the success criteria established for each of these milestones. Recognizing the possibility of an anomaly during the mission, the results will be weighed and evaluated against the criteria and incorporated into future missions already in development between now and 2025. Mission 2 and Mission 3, which also will contribute to NASA’s Artemis Program, will further improve the maturity of ispace’s technology and business model. Future announcements on progress of milestone achievement are expected to be released once attained.
About ispace, inc.
ispace, a global lunar resource development company with the vision, “Expand our Planet. Expand our Future.”, specializes in designing and building lunar landers and rovers. ispace aims to extend the sphere of human life into space and create a sustainable world by providing high-frequency, low-cost transportation services to the Moon. The company has offices in Japan, Luxembourg, and the United States with more than 200 employees worldwide. ispace technologies U.S., inc. is part of a team led by Draper, which was awarded a NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) Program contract to land on the far side of the Moon by 2025 (as of December 2022). Both ispace, and ispace EUROPE S.A. (ispace EU) were awarded contracts to collect and transfer ownership of lunar regolith to NASA, and ispace EU was selected by ESA to be part of the Science Team for PROSPECT, a program which seeks to extract water on the Moon.
Established in 2010, ispace operated “HAKUTO” which was one of five finalist teams in the Google Lunar XPRIZE race. The company’s first mission as part of its HAKUTO-R lunar exploration program is currently planned for as early as December 2022 and is expected to launch from the United States on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. ispace has also launched a lunar data business concept to support new customers as a gateway to conduct business on the Moon.
For more information, visit: www.ispace-inc.com; Follow us on Twitter: @ispace_inc.