Japanese Company Aims to Land the First Private Moon Mission Later this Month

1 comment

1. Filed by Passant Rabie, November 2, 2022.

   Excerpt:

   >Tokyo-based company ispace is gearing up to make history with the kickoff of its lunar program, attempting to land the first commercial lunar lander this month and deliver government and privately-owned payloads to the surface of the Moon.

   >The Mission 1 lander (M1) is the inaugural mission to ispace’s lunar exploration program, Hakuto-R.

   >The lunar lander is designed to provide a low-cost delivery service to the Moon, deploying payloads on the lunar surface. The M1 lander will also serve as a stationary probe for exploring the surface of the Moon.

   > 

   >The M1 lander was fully assembled in May and later underwent final testing to prove it was ready to endure the harsh environment of space at the IABG GmbH Space Centre in Ottobrunn, Germany.

   >In late October, the lander was packed up and flown to Cape Canaveral in Florida to prepare it for its liftoff. M1 will ride aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 no earlier than November 22, ispace announced on Monday [31 October 2022].

   > 

   >The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will use M1 to deliver a tiny, two-wheeled transformable robot to the Moon. The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) is about the size of a baseball and is designed to test techniques for future missions to the Moon on a smaller scale.

   >M1 will also carry two commercial payloads from Canada. Canadensys Aerospace will provide a lunar camera, while Mission Control Space Services will provide an AI flight computer.

   >Another payload riding with the M1 lander will be the Emirati-built Rashid rover. The four-wheeled rover was developed by the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre, and designed to study the geology of the Moon, exploring lunar soil and dust.

   Gizmodo (G/O Media)