7 Dec, 2022
TOKYO—December 7, 2022— ispace, inc., a global lunar exploration company, released an updated launch schedule for its Mission 1 (M1) lunar lander, now scheduled to liftoff from SLC-40 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station no earlier than Dec. 11, 2022. The M1 lander, part of the HAKUTO-R lunar exploration program, will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
The initial launch attempt of the HAKUTO-R Mission 1 lunar lander was postponed, allowing SpaceX to perform additional pre-flight checks of the launch vehicle.
ispace’s Mission 1 lunar lander was integrated into the SpaceX Falcon 9 fairing and battery charging operations for the lander will continue. No issues with the lander itself have been identified. As of today, no major operational changes are planned, with lunar landing scheduled for the end of April 2023.
The launch can be viewed on SpaceX’s livestream. ispace’s mission control center will also livestream during the launch. For more information about how to view these streams, please follow us on social media or our web site at: www.ispace-inc.com.
YouTube
ispace (English): https://www.youtube.com/@ispace9464
HAKUTO-R channel (Japanese): https://www.youtube.com/@HAKUTOR
Twitter
ispace Twitter (English): @ispace_inc
HAKUTO-R Twitter (Japanese): @ispace_HAKUTO_R
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 Mission3, 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.
Mission 1 Milestones
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.