Sunday marked a milestone for commercial and public space ventures alike, with NASA’s Orion capsule returning to Earth just hours after the launch of a privately funded and built lunar lander by Japanese company ispace.
The two missions — the conclusion of NASA’s Artemis I and ispace’s Mission 1 — are some of the clearest signs yet that the moon is likely to become a permanent site for science missions and commercial activity.
ispace lander makes its way to the lunar surface
Ispace launched Mission 1 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida early Sunday morning. If successful, the mission will be the first to place an entirely privately funded and built lander on the lunar surface.
Image Credits: Spacex (Opens in a new window)
The Tokyo-based startup has been working on technology for the moon for more than a decade. The company operated as Team Hakuto in the Google Lunar X Prize, a competition to boost the development of commercial lunar landers. After that competition ended without a winner, ispace continued to develop its technology. It relaunched the Hakuto name for the lunar lander that launched on Sunday, dubbed “Hakuto-R” — both in homage to the origin story and in recognition that the project is a “reboot” of the original project.
It’s been a long road to launch, iSpace CEO Takeshi Hakamada told businessroundups.org during a panel at TC Sessions: Space last week.
“Twelve years is a long time to survive,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of ups and downs.”
The ups include a remarkable amount of funding: The company raised more than $235 million in a series of rounds, the last of which closed last August. Hakamada recognized the importance of financing for technology-driven companies.
“In the space industry, many people think that technology is very important. It’s not wrong,” he said. However, money is all the more important. To start something we need money, we need to hire people, we need to buy something. Thinking about financing is the first thing to do, also as a technology company.”
The company has laid out 10 mission milestones for Mission 1, the mission that launched Sunday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Ispace completed milestone 1 and 2 (launch preparations completed and launch itself); the company will tick off the final milestone once the Hakuto-R lander has established stable power and communications on the lunar surface. The lander, which carries multiple government and commercial payloads for customers including Canada and the United Arab Emirates, is expected to land on the moon in April. Ispace aims to launch its second mission in 2024.
Artemis I ends with the return of Orion
Hours after ispace launched the lander, NASA’s Orion spacecraft crashed into the Pacific Ocean, bringing a spectacular end to the agency’s Artemis I mission. Artemis I, which kicked off with the launch of the Space Launch System’s mega rocket in November, was the first in a series of planned missions to return humans to the moon by the end of this decade. The main purpose of Artemis I was to test the Orion spacecraft before carrying crew. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told reporters shortly after landing that the mission was “extremely successful.”
“It’s the beginning of the new beginning, and that is to explore the sky.”
The capsule covered 2.4 million miles during its 25-day mission around the moon and back. While the agency is still reviewing data on Orion’s performance, particularly the performance of its heat shields, NASA Orion Program Manager Howard Hu said at the press briefing that the agency was pleased with what they’ve assessed so far.
Artemis II, which will take place no earlier than 2024, will be manned, although the four-man team will not land on the moon. That honor goes to the crew members of the Artemis III. NASA awarded SpaceX a $2.9 billion contract to build the Starship landing system for that mission, which is scheduled to launch before the decade is out.
