14.10.2022
ispace Announces HAKUTO-R Mission 1 Launch Window for November 9 – 15, 2022
TOKYO
—ispace, inc. (ispace), a global lunar exploration company with its headquarters in Japan and regional offices in the United States and Europe, announced today that it currently plans to launch its Mission1 (M1) lunar lander, part of the HAKUTO-R program, in a target window of November 9 – 15, 2022 at the earliest.
The launch is set to occur on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla. Upon its deployment from the rocket, the M1 lander will then carry multiple commercial and government payloads including two rovers to the surface of the Moon.
The assembled M1 flight model at the IABG Space Test Centre.
“When we participated in the Google Lunar XPRIZE we had about 20 employees, but now we’ve grown to more than 200 in Japan, the United States and Europe, each working every day with the ispace vision to achieve success. We are focused on each of our missions, but now that the launch window has been set for M1 we are ready for the challenge along with our HAKUTO-R partners,” said Takeshi Hakamada, Founder, Representative Director, and CEO of ispace. “For me this is a milestone on the road to realizing our vision, but I am already proud of our results. I look forward to watching the launch alongside all of our employees and those who have supported us.”
In addition to the launch window announcement, ispace released the following updates:
● As of September 2022, the final functional testing of the flight model at the IABG mbH Space Centre in Germany has been completed. The lander is now being prepared for transport to the launch site in Florida.
● In August 2022, ispace welcomed its 200th The total number of employees across its three offices in Japan, Luxembourg, and the United States now exceeds 200.
● After launch, M1 will be operated from the HAKUTO-R Mission Control Center (MCC) located in Tokyo’s central business district, Nihonbashi. The MCC will monitor the lander’s attitude, temperature, and other conditions, send commands and data to the lander, and receive images and video data during transit to the Moon as well as from the lunar surface.
● M1 will utilize a ground station network of the European Space Agency (ESA). The ESA’s Tracking Station Network (ESTRACK) is operated from the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany. M1 will use five of the ESTRACK network’s antennas across three continents, located in Kourou (French Guiana), New Norcia (Western Australia), Cebreros (Spain), Malargüe (Argentina) and Goonhilly (UK).
Future Mission Updates
Mission 2 planning is currently under way. Specific details of M2 payloads will be released at a later date.
In July 2022, NASA awarded Team Draper, which includes ispace subsidiary, ispace technologies U.S., inc. (ispace US), $73 million to deliver payloads including two communication relay satellites to lunar orbit as well as a suite of scientific experiments to the lunar surface. In addition to the NASA CLPS award, ispace US expects to carry additional commercial payloads on M3 to supplement the total award. ispace is in active negotiations to fill M3 orders and beyond.
About ispace, inc. (https://ispace-inc.com/)
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 September 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 November 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.
Quelle: ispace
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Update: 20.10.2022
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Ispace lander set November launch dates
The HAKUTO-R M1 lander, built by ispace, undergoes final preparations in Germany for shipment to Cape Canaveral for a Falcon 9 launch Nov. 9-15. Credit: ispace
WASHINGTON — NASA’s Artemis 1 mission and a Japanese lander are set to launch to the moon from Florida within days of each other in November.
NASA announced Oct. 12 that it has scheduled the launch of the Artemis 1 mission for Nov. 14 from the Kennedy Space Center. The launch would take place during a 69-minute window that opens at 12:07 a.m. Eastern. Backup launch windows are available Nov. 16 at 1:04 a.m. Eastern and Nov. 19 at 1:45 a.m. Eastern, each two hours long.
The agency said that inspections of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft after it rolled back to the Vehicle Assembly Building Sept. 27 found “minimal work” needed to prepare them for another launch attempt. That work includes repairing minor damage to the rocket’s thermal protection system from earlier launch attempts and tests, as well as replacing or recharging batteries for the rocket’s flight termination system. NASA expects to have the vehicle ready to roll back to Launch Complex 39B as soon as Nov. 4.
NASA rolled the rocket back to the VAB to protect it from Hurricane Ian as the storm cut across Florida. That ruled out launch opportunities in late September and early October, and the rollback meant NASA could not try again during a launch period open in the latter half of October.
The new launch opportunities are near the start of the following launch period. NASA is pressing ahead with those opportunities despite them being at night. Agency officials earlier suggested they preferred to launch during the day for improved tracking of the SLS on its inaugural flight, but that would have required waiting until at least Nov. 22, in the latter half of the launch period.
The new launch date for Artemis 1 means it is now scheduled for launch within days of a commercial lunar lander mission. Japanese company ispace announced Oct. 12 that it plans to launch its first HAKUTO-R lander on a Falcon 9 between Nov. 9 and 15 from Cape Canaveral.
The M1 lander completed testing last month at a facility in Germany and it being prepared for shipment to the launch site. The lander is carrying a variety of payloads, including a small lunar rover called Rashid developed by the United Arab Emirates.
“For me this is a milestone on the road to realizing our vision, but I am already proud of our results,” Takeshi Hakamada, chief executive of ispace, said in a statement. “I look forward to watching the launch alongside all of our employees and those who have supported us.”
That schedule puts ispace ahead of two American companies also preparing lunar landers for launch. Both Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines had planned to launch their first lander missions before the end of the year, carrying payloads that included those provided by NASA though its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. However, Intuitive Machines said over the summer that the Falcon 9 launch of its IM-1 mission would slip to early 2023.
Astrobotic, flying on the inaugural mission of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur, had been holding a 2022 launch until Oct. 10, when ULA announced it was delaying the launch to the first quarter of 2023 to give Astrobotic more time to complete its lander. It was not clear that Vulcan itself would be ready to launch this year because of delays in the delivery of the BE-4 engines that power its first stage.
In an Oct. 10 statement, John Thornton, chief executive of Astrobotic, said his company would release more details about its launch plans in the near future, but noted the lander has recently returned to the company’s Pittsburgh headquarters after completing pressure testing of its propulsion system.
“We are now proceeding with final spacecraft assembly which includes installation of the solar panel along with avionics, sensors, communications equipment and payloads, which are already tested and integrated with their corresponding decks,” he said. “As Peregrine begins its journey to the Moon in early 2023, it will be an incredible accomplishment for Astrobotic, the city of Pittsburgh, and the space industry as a whole.”
Tokyo-based ispace is not directly a part of the CLPS program. However, its U.S. office is part of a team led by Draper that won a CLPS award in July for a lander mission to the far side of the moon scheduled for launch in 2025.
Quelle: SN
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Update: 2.11.2022
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ispace HAKUTO-R Lunar Lander Launch Now Scheduled for November 22
With two Canadian payloads onboard, the ispace HAKUTO-R Mission 1 (M1) lunar lander has been shipped to Cape Canaveral, Florida for a November 22 launch date.
The launch of the first commercial lunar lander mission to attempt a landing on the Moon was originally scheduled between November 9 -15. However, ispace stated that after consulting with SpaceX, the new tentative launch date would be moved to November 22 because it “allows for best preparation for the mission when considering the fuel-loading schedule for the lander and launch date availability.” SpaceX has a busy schedule at the Cape and NASA still has the Artemis 1 launch scheduled for November 14.
The two Canadian payloads are from Canadensys Aerospace and Mission Control Space Services. Canadensys is providing a multi-camera vision system while Mission Control is providing a first of its kind AI-based demonstration flight computer.
The HAKUTO-R lunar Lander went through “final testing including vibration tests, thermal vacuum tests, mass property and functional testing” and other testing at the IABG GmbH Space Centre near Munich, Germany before it was packed into a cargo plane the Munich International Airport for its late October flight to Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Once launched, the M1 “will be operated from the HAKUTO-R Mission Control Center (MCC) located in Tokyo’s central business district, Nihonbashi.” Tracking will be provided by the European Space Agency Tracking Station Network (ESTRACK) and will use “five of the ESTRACK network’s antennas across three continents, located in Kourou (French Guiana), New Norcia (Western Australia), Cebreros (Spain), Malargüe (Argentina) and Goonhilly (UK).”
ispace is already planning for a second mission, simply called Mission 2. Details on playloads will be released at a later date. The company is also actively preparing for Mission 3 through its subsidiary ispace technologies U.S., inc. That company was part of a Draper led team that won a US$73 million contract this summer from NASA as part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program “to deliver payloads including two communication relay satellites to lunar orbit as well as a suite of scientific experiments to the lunar surface.” The M3 will also carry commercial payloads to use all the available payload space on the lunar lander.
Quelle: spaceQ
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Japanese lunar lander, with NASA rideshare, to launch this month
The HAKUTO-R M1 lander during final testing in Germany. The spacecraft is now scheduled to launch no earlier than Nov. 22. Credit: ispace
WASHINGTON — Japanese lunar lander developer ispace is in the final phases of preparations for the launch of its first lunar lander mission, a flight that will include a NASA lunar cubesat mission as a secondary payload.
Tokyo-based ispace announced Oct. 31 that its HAKUTO-R M1 lander had arrived at Cape Canaveral, Florida, for final preparations for launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9. The spacecraft arrived by plane from Germany, where it had completed final assembly and testing.
The company previously targeted a launch between Nov. 9 and 15, but said in the announcement that it had postponed the launch to no earlier than Nov. 22. The new launch date “allows for best preparation for the mission when considering the fuel-loading schedule for the lander and launch date availability,” the company stated.
The M1 lander is carrying government and commercial payloads, including Rashid, a small lunar rover developed by the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre in the United Arab Emirates, and a “transformable lunar robot” the size of a baseball from Japan’s space agency JAXA. Other payloads include cameras and technology demonstrations.
As the name suggests, the M1 lander is the first in a series planned by ispace. The next mission, M2, is tentatively scheduled for launch in 2024.
The Falcon 9 launch of the ispace lander will carry a NASA cubesat as a secondary payload. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said Oct. 28 that its Lunar Flashlight cubesat was being prepared to launch on that flight. The 6U cubesat will go into a highly elliptical orbit that will take it within 15 kilometers of the surface over the south pole, allowing it shine lasers into the craters there to look for evidence of water ice.
Lunar Flashlight was originally slated to fly with a dozen other cubesats as secondary payloads on Artemis 1, the first launch of the Space Launch System. However, problems with the propulsion system on the cubesat prevented it from being completed in time to meet a delivery deadline last fall for being integrated on the rocket.
Last spring, NASA said it planned to fly Lunar Flashlight instead as a secondary payload on another Falcon 9 launching IM-1, the first lunar lander mission by Intuitive Machines, carrying a set of payloads for NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program as well as commercial customers. That mission, once set to launch by the end of this year, has now slipped to March 2023.
In a statement to SpaceNews Oct. 31, NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology Program said that it worked with a launch broker “who placed the spacecraft on the earliest possible suitable launch opportunity based on the launch trajectory.” When launch schedules changed in the fall, the ispace mission became that earliest launch opportunity.
Despite missing its original ride, Lunar Flashlight won’t be far behind the cubesats it was to fly with on Artemis 1. NASA is planning a launch of the SLS on that mission no earlier than Nov. 14.
Quelle: SN
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Update: 18.11.2022
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ispace Announces Mission 1 Launch Date
Scheduled to launch on November 28, 2022, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket
TOKYO—November 17, 2022— ispace, inc., a global lunar exploration company, plans to launch its Mission 1 (M1) lunar lander, part of the HAKUTO-R lunar exploration program, on Nov. 28, 2022, at the earliest, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Founder & CEO Takeshi Hakamada announced today at a press conference in Tokyo.
In addition to the launch date announcement, ispace unveiled 10 mission milestones, the landing site for its M1 mission, its seventh payload and the HAKUTO-R countdown clock at the press conference held outside of the company’s mission control center.
HAKUTO-R Mission 1 Launch Schedule
Time: 3:46 a.m., Monday, November 28, 2022 (U.S. Eastern Standard Time)
5:46 p.m., Monday, November 28, 2022 (Japan Standard Time)
Launch site: Space Launch Complex 40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, U.S.
*The above dates and times are subject to change depending on weather and other conditions.
“Our first mission will lay the groundwork for unleashing the moon’s potential and transforming it into a robust and vibrant economic system,” said Takeshi Hakamada, Founder and CEO of ispace. “We look forward to contributing to NASA’s Artemis program as a commercial lunar transportation service and pioneering the development of future industries and connecting the Earth to the Moon and beyond.”
During the event, ispace released Mission Milestones for its inaugural mission at the press conference held outside of its Mission Control Center in Nihonbashi, Tokyo.
M1 is considered a technology demonstration with an overall objective to validate the lander’s design and technology, as well as ispace’s business model to provide reliable lunar transportation and data services. For M1, 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, supporting the company’s evolution of sustainable technology and its business models.
The accumulated data and experience from M1 will be incorporated into future designs and operations to enhance missions, beginning immediately with Mission 2, which is already in the development stage and is scheduled for 2024. As a private corporation, ispace’s business model calls for continuous, short cycles of technology development to increase capability and reliability in order to usher in an era of full-scale commercialization of the space industry. This model will incorporate knowledge from both missions into Mission 3 (M3) planned for 2025. M3 will contribute to NASA’s Artemis Program under its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program with a mature lander design and operations based on data and experience acquired during the first two missions.
Mission 1 Landing Site Announcement
Along with the launch date and milestones, ispace announced its primary landing site, the Atlas Crater, located at 47.5°N, 44.4°E, on the southeastern outer edge of Mare Frigoris (“Sea of Cold”), chosen to maintain flexibility during operations. The primary landing site was chosen along with multiple contingencies, which may be used depending on variables that occur during transit. The site meets the technical specifications of the lander technology demonstration mission, the scientific exploration objectives for the MBRSC mission, as well as the mission requirements of our other customers. Careful consideration of the target site criteria included continuous sun-illumination duration and communication visibility from the Earth. Alternative landing targets include Lacus Somniorum, Sinus Iridium and Oceanus Procellarum, among others. Landing is currently expected to take place around the end of April 2023.
Final Mission 1 Payload Revealed
During the press conference, ispace announced its final payload, a music disc containing the song “SORATO” played by Japanese rock band Sakanaction. The song was originally written in 2018 in support of “Team HAKUTO,” a participant in the Google Lunar XPRIZE and precursor to ispace. Sorato was also the name of the lunar rover developed by Team HAKUTO during the Google Lunar XPRIZE, which closed without awarding prize money.
“We couldn’t make it happen back then, but I was surprised to hear just 4 years after releasing the song we had this opportunity,” said Ichiro Yamaguchi, guitarist, vocalist and founding member of the band. “I am looking forward to the launch. I know that there will moments where you will face difficulties due to various pressures and expectations, but we, including myself, will continue to support you. We hope that you will not be defeated and will face the challenge.”
Sakanaction was founded in 2005 and describes itself as a rock band with folksy melodies and a club music approach. They have released seven albums, regularly sell out arena tours and rank at the top of the charts in Japan.
Mission 1 Countdown Clock
In collaboration with ispace corporate partner CITIZEN, the HAKUTO-R M1 Countdown clock was unveiled in front of the HAKUTO-R Mission Control Center (MCC).
The countdown clock’s time system, which can receive GPS satellite and keep accurate time, is connected to the time server of CITIZEN. It is also the same time system that is used in the MCC, which plays an important role in keeping time during the launch and mission.
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 November 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 November 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.
Quelle: ispace
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Update: 20.11.2022
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Japanese lunar lander slated to launch Nov. 28 at the earliest
Takeshi Hakamada, ispace's founder and CEO, speaks at a press conference held in Tokyo, Japan Nov. 17. Credit: ispace
TAMPA, Fla. — Japan’s ispace expects SpaceX to launch its lunar lander Nov. 28 at the earliest for a mission to the moon’s surface roughly five months later.
The company said Nov. 17 its HAKUTO-R M1 lander is slated to fly on a Falcon 9 at 3:46 a.m Eastern from the Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, subject to weather and other conditions.
This would put M1 on track to land on the moon by around the end of April, when it would deliver lunar payloads for the UAE-based Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre, the Japanese space agency JAXA and commercial firms in Japan and Canada.
The company also announced Nov. 17 it has chosen the Atlas Crater at Mare Frigoris to the far north of the moon as its primary landing site.
Landing on the southeastern outer edge of Mare Frigoris — one of the moon’s dark basaltic plains — would provide M1 with continuous sunlight for power and visibility to Earth for communications, ispace said.
Alternative landing targets include Lacus Somniorum, Sinus Iridium and Oceanus Procellarum.
M1’s planned low-energy trajectory to the moon required the lander to have the Falcon 9 practically to itself.
After separating from the rocket about an hour after lift-off, it will take the lander about four months to reach lunar orbit via a series of propulsive maneuvers.
Once in lunar orbit it will then take about two weeks for ispace to perform the maneuvers and checks it needs to initiate a soft landing sequence it expects to take about an hour to complete.
With its legs extended, M1 stands at 2.3 meters tall and 2.6 meters wide, with a dry mass of about 340 kilograms.
Joining M1 on the Falcon 9 as a secondary payload is NASA’s Lunar Flashlight spacecraft, which is the size of six cubesats, designed to hunt for evidence of water ice in craters around the moon’s south pole from a highly elliptical orbit.
M1 is the first in a series of landers ispace plans to send to the lunar surface. Its next mission has been penciled in for 2024.
The 12-year-old firm, which had 214 employees as of October, said it has insured its inaugural mission with coverage from Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance, a Tokyo-based firm that started working with ispace in 2019.
According to ispace’s Nov. 17 news release, the policy “covers from the launch of the rocket carrying the lunar lander, through the establishment of communication and data transmissions between the lander and mission control following landing on the lunar surface.”
Global insurance broker Marsh supported the policy, which only covers the lander, not its payloads.
Quelle: SN
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Update: 21.11.2022
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SpaceX to launch Japanese moon lander, UAE rover on Nov. 28
Tokyo-based ispace aims to make lunar history.
A Japanese private moon lander is in a race to make history.
On Nov. 28, Tokyo-based ispace's Hakuto-R lander is scheduled to launch for the moon's Atlas Crater to ready for a soft touchdown, which may be the first ever by a private company on the lunar surface.
Hakuto-R will lift off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and arrive at the moon no earlier than April 2023. Following landing, Hakuto-R will deploy a small United Arab Emirates rover, called Rashid. The four-wheeled rover will study the moon for 14 Earth days using a high-resolution camera, a thermal imager, a microscopic imager and a probe designed to examine electrical charges on the lunar surface.
It's unclear if Hakuto-R will be the first private venture to touch down softly on the moon, however. NASA has tasked the company Intuitive Machines to launch its Nova-C lunar lander, scheduled now for March 2023, while Astrobotic's Peregrine lunar lander will lift off in the first quarter of 2023, according to Spaceflight Now's launch calendar(opens in new tab). At this early stage, it's difficult to say which of these companies will land first.
"Our first mission will lay the groundwork for unleashing the moon's potential and transforming it into a robust and vibrant economic system," Takeshi Hakamada, founder and CEO of ispace, said in a statement(opens in new tab) Thursday (Nov. 17), one day after NASA kickstarted its Artemis human lunar program with the successful moonbound launch of the uncrewed Artemis 1.
Landing safely on the moon is hard, especially for private companies, which don't have the resources of a national government. For example, SpaceIL's privately funded Beresheet lander crashed during its touchdown attempt. 2019. But a new era is coming nonetheless, featuring small commercial landers swarming on the moon to help pave the way for future human landings.
NASA's Artemis program is supporting a fleet of companies like ispace, Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines under the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program (CLPS) that will bring even more robotic missions to the surface in the coming decade. (Hakuto-R isn't supported by CLPS, but ispace's partner Draper was tasked by NASA to lead a team performing a daring lunar far-side landingslated to happen no earlier than 2025.)
The primary landing site of Hakuto-R, Atlas Crater, is on the northeast quadrant of the moon near Mare Frigoris ("Sea of Cold"). The site was chosen to "maintain flexibility during operations," ispace said, but the company didn't release many specifics apart from saying the site allows for "multiple contingencies" during the long transit phase of the mission.
"Careful consideration of the target site criteria included continuous sun-illumination duration and communication visibility from the Earth," ispace officials wrote. "Alternative landing targets include Lacus Somniorum, Sinus Iridium and Oceanus Procellarum, among others."
"Hakuto," which means "white rabbit" in Japanese, was the name of the ispace-managed team for the Google Lunar X-Prize (GLXP). The GLXP offered $20 million to the first private group able to land on the moon and do a few tasks, but concluded in 2018 with no winner receiving the prize.
Hakuto-R (the "R" stands for "rebooted") was at first slated to land on the moon in 2021, but was held up due to technical issues and other matters. The company aims to eventually enable human settlement using lunar water ice that can be mined in situ.
Quelle: SC
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Update: 26.11.2022
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ispace Announces Mission 1 Launch Schedule Update
Now Scheduled to launch on November 30, 2022
TOKYO—November 25, 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 on Nov. 30, 2022, at the earliest. The M1 lander, part of a the HAKUTO-R lunar exploration program, will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
The updated schedule is the result of launch constraints such as unfavorable weather conditions that impacted launches from the designated launch pad.
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/videos
HAKUTO-R channel (Japanese): https://www.youtube.com/@HAKUTOR
Quelle: ispace
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Update: 29.11.2022
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Weather excellent for SpaceX launch of Japanese moon lander; will include local booster landing
Weather conditions will likely be excellent for SpaceX's next Florida launch, a unique mission slated to fly a Japanese lander to the moon early Wednesday.
If conditions hold, weather forecasters on Monday said conditions should be nearly 100% "go" for liftoff from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station's Launch Complex 40. A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch at 3:39 a.m. EST Wednesday, Nov. 30, then return for a land-based recovery at the Cape's Landing Zone 1.
Residents and spectators should be prepared for sonic booms generated by the 162-foot first stage as it returns to landing site, also known as RTLS. That will occur within 10 minutes after liftoff toward the northeast.
"High pressure builds across the eastern U.S. ... bringing dry conditions to start the week," Space Launch Delta 45 forecasters said. "The associated front is expected to remain well west of the area going into the primary launch opportunity early Wednesday morning with breezy southeasterly flow."
Quelle: Florida Today
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Update: 30.11.2022
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Japanese commercial moon lander, UAE rover ready for launch on SpaceX rocket
A commercial moon craft developed by the Japanese company ispace is awaiting launch from Cape Canaveral before dawn Thursday on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that will send it on a five-month trajectory culminating in a lunar landing attempt next year, an achievement that could make ispace the first private company to accomplish the feat.
The one-ton robotic Hakuto-R lander is set for liftoff from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 3:37 a.m. EST (0837 GMT) Thursday. SpaceX called off a launch attempt early Wednesday to allow time for “additional pre-flight checkouts.”
The Falcon 9 rocket will send the spacecraft on a course taking it a million miles from Earth, well beyond the moon, on a long-duration but fuel-efficient voyage before it slips into lunar orbit next April.
Once in orbit around the moon, ispace’s lander will fire its main engine to autonomously descend to the lunar surface, targeting a landing in the northern hemisphere of the moon’s nearside.
The moon lander mission is the culmination of 12 years of engineering development and fundraising, an effort that included starts, stops, and wholesale changes in scope.
The Google Lunar X Prize, the sweepstakes that offered a $20 million grand prize to the first privately-funded team to put a lander on the moon, was the original impetus for Takeshi Hakamada to establish the company that eventually became ispace. Hakamada’s group, called Hakuto, worked on designing a lunar rover to ride to the moon on another lander. But the Google Lunar X Prize shut down in 2018 without a winner, leading some of the teams to dissolve or struggle to find new purpose.
Hakamada redirected ispace’s efforts to design and develop its own moon lander, a reboot the firm calls Hakuto-R. Hakuto means “white rabbit” in Japanese.
“Since then, our mission shifted from only the Lunar X Prize to a broader transportation business,” Hakamada said in an interview with Spaceflight Now. “We are aiming to launch our first mission Nov. 30. This is going to be the first private mission to land on the moon, and we are going to bring payloads from the government side and also the private sector, too. This is going to be opening the door for future commercial cislunar industries.”
As of July, the company had secured $237 million in equity financing and bank loans to pay for the Hakuto-R lunar transportation program, although ispace has not disclosed the cost of the mission launching this week. The company says it “specializes in designing and building lunar landers and rovers.”
The goal of ispace is 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,” according to the company’s website.
The first Hakuto-R lander, which ispace calls Mission 1, will carry about 24 pounds (11 kilograms) of customer payloads to the moon’s surface, according to Hakamada. By far, the largest of the payloads is a rover from the United Arab Emirates developed by the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center. While the rover takes up most of the Hakuto-R lander’s payload capacity, it is still small in stature, measuring just 21 inches by 21 inches (53-by-53 centimeters).
The lander is also hauling an even smaller mobile robot developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the Japanese toy company Tomy. The so-called transformable lunar robot weighs just a half-pound (250 grams) and is some 3 inches (80 millimeters) wide before it deploys tiny wheels to roll across the lunar surface and collect data and imagery to aid in the design of a future pressurized rover to transport astronauts on the moon.
A payload from NGK Spark Plug, another Japanese company, will test the performance of solid-state batteries. The Hakuto-R landing craft also has payloads from three Canadian companies: Wide-angle cameras from Canadensys, an artificial intelligence flight computer from Mission Control Space Services, and a demonstration for NGC Aerospace’s crater-based autonomous navigation system.
First, ispace’s lander has to reach the moon. Government-led missions from the United States, the Soviet Union, and China have landed on the moon, but ispace is using a commercial business model.
“Our mission is privately funded,” Hakamada said. “However, we have some relationships with governments, like our payload from the UAE Space Agency and MBRSC, and we also have a JAXA payload as well. But even these payloads are commercial contracts, with no R&D funding from the government, so totally different than the past engagement with the government.”
Hakamada’s investors include Suzuki, Japan Airlines, the Development Bank of Japan, Konica Minolta, Dentsu, and numerous venture capital and equity funds.
The fundraising allowed ispace to purchase parts for its Hakuto-R lander from suppliers around the world. The hydrazine-fueled propulsion system comes from ArianeGroup, which also helped ispace perform final assembly of the lander in Germany. Draper, a Massachusetts-based company, is providing guidance, navigation, and control software for the landing, a similar role Draper filled on NASA’s Apollo missions. The solar panels were supplied by Sierra Space.
“As our first mission, my strategy was to accelerate the speed to go to the market,” Hakamada said. “In order to do that, we recognized that becoming the systems integrator is key to accelerate the speed of development. If we develop each of the components, it takes time. There is technology for this, and the important point is how do you integrate the technology into one system with enough funding.”
The first Hakuto-R lander, which ispace calls its Series 1 design, weighs about 2,200 pounds (1 metric ton) fully fueled for launch. About two-thirds of its launch mass is hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide propellants to feed the lander’s engines. With its legs extended, the lander stands 7.5 feet (2.3 meters) and 8.5 feet (2.6 meters) wide.
After departure from Cape Canaveral, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will head east over the Atlantic Ocean and shut down its first stage booster less than two-and-a-half minutes into the flight. The reusable first stage, flying for the fourth time, will return to Cape Canaveral for a propulsive landing.
The Falcon 9’s second stage will fire two times to send the Hakuto-R lander on a speedy trajectory to carry it far away from Earth. Separation of the lander from the Falcon 9 upper stage is scheduled 46 minutes into the mission. That will be followed by activation of the spacecraft’s systems and extension of its four landing legs.
A 31-pound (14-kilogram) hitchhiker payload for NASA, called Lunar Flashlight, will deploy from the Falcon 9 nearly 53 minutes after launch. The Lunar Flashlight is led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and will fly itself to a looping halo orbit around the moon. Its mission will test a laser system to shine into eternally dark craters near the lunar poles. The spacecraft will measure the light reflected off the lunar surface, revealing the composition and quantity of water ice and other molecules hidden on dark crater floors.
With a series of course correction maneuvers, the ispace lander will take a similar but independent track toward its destination. It will reach a maximum distance a million miles, or 1.5 million kilometers, away from Earth before gravity pulls it back toward the moon. The Hakuto-R lander will fire thrusters to be captured into lunar orbit, then set up for the final descent to the surface around the end of April.
“We call it a low-energy orbit because we can reduce propellant consumption using this orbit, having an assist from the gravity of the sun,” Hakamada said. “In order to reduce the launch mass and reduce launch cost, we selected this orbit. But this orbit is similar to several recent mission to use similar trajectory, like the CAPSTONE mission by NASA or the Korean lunar orbiter as well. So we don’t think there is a lot of risk on this orbit.”
The target landing site is Atlas crater, located in a region on the nearside of the moon called Mare Frigoris, or the Sea of Cold. Engineers at a mission operations center in Tokyo will oversee Hakuto-R’s flight to the moon.
Ryo Ujiie, ispace’s chief technology officer, said the company has identified 10 major milestones for its first lunar landing mission. The first milestone has already been achieved with the completion of launch preparations. That will be followed by the launch and deployment of the Hakuto-R spacecraft, establishment of steady-state operations, and the first orbit control maneuver within one or two days of liftoff.
Other milestones included the completion of one month of operations in deep space, the execution of additional course correction burns, entry into lunar orbit, adjustments to line up with the landing site, and the landing itself. A final objective will be the completion of payload operations on the lunar surface.
Assuming the landing is successful, the spacecraft is designed to operate for about 10 days after touchdown. long enough to deploy the UAE’s moon rover and JAXA’s mobile robot. The stationary landing craft will relay communications signals from the deployable payloads back to Earth. The mission will end when sun sets on the landing site to begin the two-week-long lunar night.
Aside from the payloads mounted on lander, ispace aims to fulfill a contract with NASA with the first Hakuto-R mission. NASA awarded contracts in 2020 to purchase lunar regolith from commercial companies, including a $5,000 deal to ispace. All of the agreements were relatively low in monetary value.
The initiative is part of NASA’s Artemis moon program. NASA wants to eventually contract with commercial companies to acquire resources, such as minerals and water, that could sustain a future moon base. The transfer of ownership of lunar soil from a private company to NASA will help officials on both sides of the transaction sort through legal and regulatory issues.
“It’s only the conceptual transfer of ownership,” Hakamada said. Bits of dust kicked up by the landing engine are expected to settle on the footpads of the lander’s legs.
“The regolith will come in and cover the pad, and we declare the capture of the lunar regolith, and then transfer the ownership of the regolith on this pad. We don’t move this regolith somewhere else, we don’t expect that for this first mission.”
Hakamada said ispace has a second contract to sell lunar regolith to NASA on the company’s next lunar landing mission, scheduled for 2024. On that mission, ispace may attempt to scoop up some soil from the lunar surface.
While the first Hakuto-R Series 1 lander is a purely commercial mission, ispace is working with Draper and other space companies to develop a larger robotic moon lander to transport up to a half-ton of cargo to the moon for NASA. Draper and ispace won a NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, contract earlier this year to deliver multiple NASA science instruments to the moon’s surface in 2025.
NASA’s first two CLPS missions will be flown by Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines. Both of those companies plan to launch their first privately-developed moon landers next year.
Quelle: SN
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Update: 1.12.2022
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Quelle: SpaceX
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Update: 8.12.2022
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SpaceX's next mission, the launch of a lunar lander for Japanese company ispace, was on target to fly less than 12 hours after OneWeb, but technical issues continued causing delays. It remains unclear when SpaceX hopes to boost the small lander known as Hakuto-R Mission 1 from the Cape's Launch Complex 40, but a late-night or early morning liftoff time is expected.
The Falcon 9 booster chosen to fly Hakuto-R will also return to the Cape, so residents and spectators should be prepared for middle-of-the-night booms.
Sonic booms are generated by first stage boosters returning to land at Cape Canaveral's Landing Zone 1 or 2. Depending on distance and a host of other factors like humidity and cloud cover, the booms generated by crossing the speed-of-sound threshold are loud but generally harmless.
The Space Coast does often see back-to-back launches, but not back-to-back landing attempts. Not all missions are eligible for return to landing site, or RTLS, since enough fuel needs to be left over after launching spacecraft.
Florida does, however, see simultaneous booster landings when SpaceX launches three-core Falcon Heavy missions. Only one flew in 2022, but the next is expected to launch a Space Force mission from KSC no earlier than January and will include dual booster landings.
Quelle: Florida Today
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Update: 11.12.2022
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Start von SpaceX Falcon9 mit HAKUTO-R Mission 1 Launch
Quelle: SpaceX