Japan: Ispace says it believes in its second lunar mission test

Japanese aerospace start-up ispace said Thursday it had learned the lessons of a failed attempt almost two years ago before the launch of its second unmanned lunar mission, scheduled for January 15.

In April 2023, the company’s first space shuttle made an unrecoverable “hard landing”, which dashed its ambitions to be the first private company to land on the moon.

Some time later, Houston-based Intuitive Machines accomplished this feat with an unmanned craft that landed at the wrong angle but was able to perform tests and send photos.

“We were disappointed by the failure of mission 1”

Although not the first, ispace therefore wants to earn its place in the history of space at a time when missions to the Moon are booming, both on the part of governments and that of private companies.

“At ispace, we were disappointed by the failure of Mission 1,” ispace founder and CEO Takeshi Hakamada said at a press conference on Thursday.

“But this is why we hope to send a message to people across Japan: it is important to challenge yourself, after experiencing failure and learning from it […]We will make this Mission 2 a success,” he proclaimed.

A 45 day trip

The new lander, called Resilience, will take off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday, at the same time as another lunar lander built by the American company Firefly Aerospace.

If Resilience lands successfully, it will notably deploy mini-vehicles from commercial partners.

Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander will arrive on the Moon after a 45-day journey, followed by ispace’s Resilience, which the Japanese company hopes will return to Earth between the end of May and June.

Cheaper space exploration opportunities

Only five countries have successfully landed a spacecraft softly on the Moon: the Soviet Union, the United States, China, India and, most recently, Japan.

Many companies are competing to provide cheaper and more frequent space exploration opportunities than governments.

Space One, another Japanese startup, is trying to become the first Japanese company to put a satellite into orbit, with some difficulty so far.

The impetus of private space companies

Furthermore, Toyota, the world’s number one car manufacturer, announced this week that it would invest 43 million euros (40 million Swiss francs) in the Japanese rocket start-up Interstellar Technologies.

“Global demand for small satellite launches has increased nearly 20-fold, from 141 launches in 2016 to 2,860 in 2023,” driven by private space companies, national security concerns and technological development, said worth Interstellar.

A segment where billionaire Elon Musk’s American company SpaceX particularly stood out.

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