Latest news with #月面着陸
The National
09-06-2025
- Business
- The National
Japan's ispace sets sights on 2027 comeback after second Moon mission fails
Japanese company ispace plans to launch two more missions to land on the Moon in 2027, after its Resilience lander crashed into the lunar surface on Friday. The Tokyo company confirmed that it lost communication with the lander moments before it was set to touch down. Engineers concluded that the spacecraft had a hard landing because of problems with a sensor responsible for measuring its distance from the surface. Ispace's US subsidiary is working on a larger landing vehicle, called Apex 1.0, which will be launched in 2027. Engineers in Japan are also working on a fourth mission, scheduled for the same year. 'Given that there is currently no prospect of a successful lunar landing, our top priority is to swiftly analyse the telemetry data we have obtained thus far and work diligently to identify the cause,' ispace founder Takeshi Hakamada said. What went wrong? On Friday, ispace's Mission 2 lander began its descent towards the lunar surface from an altitude of about 100km, firing its main engine as planned. The spacecraft was confirmed to be nearly vertical, but then telemetry data was lost. Engineers at the mission control centre in Tokyo did not receive confirmation of a safe landing. An initial review found that the laser rangefinder, which tells the spacecraft how far it is from the ground, struggled to obtain valid readings during descent. Without accurate distance measurements, the lander was unable to slow down, causing it to crash. Ispace's first landing vehicle suffered a similar fate in 2023, when a miscalculation in altitude estimation caused the spacecraft to crash into the Moon. It was carrying payloads from several countries, including the UAE's Rashid rover. Future plans The company will soon turn its attention to its two missions in 2027. Its Mission 3 vehicle will feature an upgraded lander with greater payload capacity and advanced guidance systems. The fourth mission will involve a lander called the Series 3. Companies including ispace are carrying out lunar missions to create a business of transport services. In January last year, US company Astrobotic launched its Peregrine lander, but a propellant leak scuppered the mission. The following month, Intuitive Machines said its Odysseus lander touched down on the Moon, before tipping over. The company followed up with its Athena lander, which also landed on its side on the lunar surface. In March this year, Texas-based Firefly Aerospace became the first company to report a successful private lunar mission. Its Blue Ghost lander operated on the surface of the Moon for two weeks. Anna Hazlett, founder of UAE-based space advisory firm AzurX, said commercial access to the Moon could transform the economics of lunar missions. 'A commercial lunar transport service lowers the barrier to entry for space agencies and research institutions,' she told The National. 'It's a shift from bespoke, typically government-led missions to scalable lunar logistics, much like what SpaceX did for low-Earth orbit.' The push to reach the lunar surface is also expected to benefit researchers. 'If I want to carry out a scientific experiment on the Moon, I will have to design the entire mission, propose it to a space agency, and the launch will be in about a decade from conception,' said Dr Dimitra Atri, an astrophysicist at New York University Abu Dhabi. 'In the case of private companies, I only need to focus on building my experiment and the company will deliver the payload to the Moon rather quickly.'
The National
09-06-2025
- Business
- The National
Japanese company sets sights on 2027 comeback after second Moon mission fails
Japanese company ispace plans to launch two more missions to land on the Moon in 2027, after its Resilience lander crashed into the lunar surface on Friday. The Tokyo company confirmed that it lost communication with the lander moments before it was set to touch down. Engineers concluded that the spacecraft had a hard landing because of problems with a sensor responsible for measuring its distance from the surface. Ispace's US subsidiary is working on a larger landing vehicle, called Apex 1.0, which will be launched in 2027. Engineers in Japan are also working on a fourth mission, scheduled for the same year. 'Given that there is currently no prospect of a successful lunar landing, our top priority is to swiftly analyse the telemetry data we have obtained thus far and work diligently to identify the cause,' ispace founder Takeshi Hakamada said. What went wrong? On Friday, ispace's Mission 2 lander began its descent towards the lunar surface from an altitude of about 100km, firing its main engine as planned. The spacecraft was confirmed to be nearly vertical, but then telemetry data was lost. Engineers at the mission control centre in Tokyo did not receive confirmation of a safe landing. An initial review found that the laser rangefinder, which tells the spacecraft how far it is from the ground, struggled to obtain valid readings during descent. Without accurate distance measurements, the lander was unable to slow down, causing it to crash. Ispace's first landing vehicle suffered a similar fate in 2023, when a miscalculation in altitude estimation caused the spacecraft to crash into the Moon. It was carrying payloads from several countries, including the UAE's Rashid rover. Future plans The company will soon turn its attention to its two missions in 2027. Its Mission 3 vehicle will feature an upgraded lander with greater payload capacity and advanced guidance systems. The fourth mission will involve a lander called the Series 3. Companies including ispace are carrying out lunar missions to create a business of transport services. In January last year, US company Astrobotic launched its Peregrine lander, but a propellant leak scuppered the mission. The following month, Intuitive Machines said its Odysseus lander touched down on the Moon, before tipping over. The company followed up with its Athena lander, which also landed on its side on the lunar surface. In March this year, Texas-based Firefly Aerospace became the first company to report a successful private lunar mission. Its Blue Ghost lander operated on the surface of the Moon for two weeks. Anna Hazlett, founder of UAE-based space advisory firm AzurX, said commercial access to the Moon could transform the economics of lunar missions. 'A commercial lunar transport service lowers the barrier to entry for space agencies and research institutions,' she told The National. 'It's a shift from bespoke, typically government-led missions to scalable lunar logistics, much like what SpaceX did for low-Earth orbit.' The push to reach the lunar surface is also expected to benefit researchers. 'If I want to carry out a scientific experiment on the Moon, I will have to design the entire mission, propose it to a space agency, and the launch will be in about a decade from conception,' said Dr Dimitra Atri, an astrophysicist at New York University Abu Dhabi. 'In the case of private companies, I only need to focus on building my experiment and the company will deliver the payload to the Moon rather quickly.'
ABC News
05-06-2025
- Business
- ABC News
Japanese spacecraft goes down during attempted Moon landing
Japanese company ispace says it has not been able to contact its uncrewed Moon lander Resilience since its lunar touchdown attempt. It is two years since ispace's failed inaugural mission. Resilience was part of ispace's bid to become the first company outside the United States to achieve a Moon landing. Resilience targeted Mare Frigoris, a basaltic plain about 900 kilometres from the Moon's north pole. The company's live-streamed flight data showed Resilience's altitude suddenly falling to zero shortly before the planned touchdown time of 4:17am on Friday, Japanese time, following an hour-long descent from lunar orbit. The company said in the broadcast: "We haven't been able to confirm [communication]." It said control centre members would "continuously attempt to communicate with the lander". Footage from the control room showed the nervous faces of ispace engineers. A room of more than 500 ispace employees, shareholders, sponsors and government officials abruptly grew silent during a public viewing event at mission partner Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp in the wee hours in Tokyo. The status of Resilience remains unclear, and ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada will hold a press conference about the outcome of the mission today, the company said. In 2023, ispace's first lander crashed into the Moon's surface due to inaccurate recognition of its altitude. Software remedies have been implemented, while the hardware design is mostly unchanged in Resilience, the company has said. Resilience carried a four-wheeled rover built by ispace's Luxembourg subsidiary and five external payloads worth $24 million, including scientific instruments from Japanese firms and a Taiwanese university. Following the landing, the 2.3 metre-high lander and the microwave-sized rover were scheduled to begin 14 days of exploration until the arrival of a freezing-cold lunar night, including capturing images of regolith, the Moon's fine-grained surface material, on a contract with US space agency NASA. Shares of ispace more than doubled this year on growing investor hopes for the second mission, before calming in recent days. As of Thursday, ispace had a market capitalisation of more than 110 billion yen ($1.2 billion). Resilience in January shared a SpaceX rocket launch with Firefly's Blue Ghost lander, which took a faster trajectory to the Moon and touched down successfully in March. Intuitive Machines, which last year marked the world's first touchdown of a commercial lunar lander, made its second attempt in March but the lander Athena ended on its side on the lunar surface just as in the first mission. Japan last year became the world's fifth country to achieve a soft lunar landing after the former Soviet Union, the US, China and India, when the national Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency achieved the touchdown of its SLIM lander, yet also in a toppled position. Reuters
The Herald
05-06-2025
- Business
- The Herald
Japan's ispace counts down to second moon-landing attempt on Friday
Japanese start-up ispace aims to become the first non-US company to achieve a controlled moon landing as it prepares for the touchdown of its second uncrewed spacecraft on Friday, two years after its inaugural mission ended in failure. Tokyo-based ispace hopes to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace, which have accomplished commercial landings since last year amid an intensifying global race for the moon that includes state-run missions from China and India. The mission also highlights broad public and private sector expectations from Japan, which remains committed to lunar exploration as part of NASA's Artemis moon programme, despite mounting uncertainty about its future as President Donald Trump reshapes US space policies. 'A moon landing is not a dream but it has become a reality,' ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada has said. The company's first lunar lander in April 2023 crashed onto the moon's surface due to a software issue that incorrectly assessed its altitude during descent over precipitous terrain. Its second lander, named Resilience, in January shared a SpaceX rocket launch with Firefly's Blue Ghost lander. Blue Ghost took a faster trajectory to the moon and touched down successfully in March. Currently circling about 100km above the lunar surface, Resilience carries a rover built by ispace's Luxembourg subsidiary and payloads worth a total of $16m, including scientific instruments from Japanese firms and a Taiwanese university. After Friday's landing on Mare Frigoris, a lunar sea relatively close to the moon's north pole, scheduled for 4:17am. Japan time (1917 GMT, Thursday), the 2.3-metre-high lander and the microwave-sized rover are tasked to capture images of regolith, the moon's fine-grained surface material. If successful, ispace said it will transfer the ownership of the collected material to NASA to fulfil what it says would be the world's first commercial transaction of lunar resources. According to a 2020 NASA statement, ispace's Japan and Luxembourg units would each receive $5,000 under this arrangement. NASA was not immediately able to comment on the impact of the Trump administration's proposed budget reductions on the contract. An ispace spokesperson declined to comment. JAPAN'S LUNAR ENTHUSIASM The company envisions establishing a lunar colony of 1,000 inhabitants by the 2040s, tapping the moon's water resources. It plans seven more missions in the US and Japan through 2029, including a NASA-sponsored one as part of the Artemis programme, to capitalise on increasing demands for lunar transportation. About a dozen corporate partners have provided support for ispace missions, including titanium materials from Citizen Watch and design expertise from automaker Suzuki. In Japan, a wide range of businesses from construction firms to carmakers engage in lunar exploration research, and the breadth of industrial interest in the moon may surpass that in the US, said Atsushi Uchida, research director at Mitsubishi Research Institute. The government has been keen to promote Japan's roles in the Artemis programme, signing an agreement with NASA last year to include two Japanese astronauts and a Toyota-built rover in forthcoming missions to the lunar surface. Exploration of the moon and Mars is one of the key objectives of Japan's newly-established multibillion-dollar space venture fund. 'Having ispace, a domestic transportation option, is a huge advantage for Japanese businesses and universities that foray into lunar exploration using government funds,' said Ritsumeikan University professor Kazuto Saiki, who participated in Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) SLIM mission that achieved Japan's first lunar landing last year. JAXA president Hiroshi Yamakawa said last month he was rooting for ispace's reattempt because their 'success will attract attention to the whole Japanese space industry'. Investors are keen. Shares in ispace, which made a blistering market debut in 2023 but languished after the landing failure, have risen about 60% year to date, epitomising a space start-up boom in the Japanese capital market. Reuters
