Category Archives: ispace

Tuesday / 15 April 2025

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New ispace-U.S. CEO Elizabeth Kryst Signs 2 Memorandums of Understanding

40th Space Symposium was backdrop for 2 announced collaborations; ispace-U.S. will work with Zeno Power, Tyler Bernstein Co-Founder / CEO, to develop technologies enabling survival of lunar night; demo mission planned NET 2027 with ispace APEX 1.0 next-generation lander (using Resilience-learned knowledge) and Zeno Power radioisotope power system (RPS) providing continuous, reliable heat / electricity via nuclear that solar panels cannot, during the 14-day lunar night at –173°C; ispace will work with Redwire (NYSE:RDW), President Mike Gold, 1 of 14 prime holders of CLPS IDIQ (indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity) contracts, worth US$2.6B, to pursue future CLPS contracts

Credit: ispace 

Tuesday / 8 April 2025

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ispace-U.S. Calls Together Science Advisors for Lunar Exploration

Lunar exploration company ispace (ispace-U.S.) has formed U.S. Lunar Science Advisory Board (US LSAB) in conjunction with 1 Apr naming of new CEO Elizabeth Kryst; Chair is Alan Stern, former NASA Associate Administrator; Amanda Hendrix, Planetary Science Institute, who studies Moon composition and lunar resources; Philip Metzger, University of Central Florida, who does regolith research; Lisa Gaddis, LPI, has received many NASA awards, does lunar analysis and geology; Jack Burns, Professor Emeritus of both Astrophysics and Physics, served on numerous NASA committees; Clive Neal, Professor of Planetary Geology, has overseen lunar samples, helped train NASA Astronauts

Credit: ispace (Pictured CW from upper left: Metzger, Stern, Burns, Gaddis, Hendrix, Neal) 

Tuesday / 18 March 2025

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ispace Has On-Track Mission, Receives Increased Award from Draper

ispace Hakuto-R Mission 2 aims to accomplish mission milestone 6 of 10 when it completes deep-space orbital maneuvers 24 April, affirming survivability there, ahead of 6 Jun landing at Mare Frigoris ~60°N; ispace business mission is to construct a sustainable Earth-Moon ecosystem implementing space resources; Hakuto-R is a multinational commercial lunar exploration program, includes payload development for lunar orbiting and landing; non-profit R&D company Draper releases US$7.7M additional funding to ispace-U.S. from its US$73M NASA CLPS award, for design of APEX 1.0 lander going NET 2026 H2 to Schrödinger Basin, ~75°S on Moon far side

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Credits: ispace, Draper

Friday / 24 January 2025

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Moon Landers On-Track and Planned for 2025

Firefly Blue Ghost reporting nominal operations and receiving signals from 331,000+ km distance, projected lunar landing 2 Mar; ispace lander Resilience to attempt mission Milestone 5 lunar flyby ~15 Feb after reaching 1.1M km apogee, Moon touchdown earliest date 15 May; if Intuitive Machines IM-2 launches on planned date of 26 Feb, landing expected 6-7 Mar; Blue Moon Pathfinder to launch on Blue Origin New Glenn as early as summer 2025, while Astrobotic Griffin could launch in fall

Credits: SpaceX, ispace, Firefly Aerospace, Blue Origin, Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines

Friday / 17 January 2025

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2 Landers On Their Way to the Moon, 3rd to Follow Soon

Although 9 hours is minimum travel time for Earth to Moon, two Moon landers launched 15 Jan, 01:11 EST, to arrive after 45 days (Firefly) and 4-5 months (ispace); flight was orbital number 100 for SpaceX from 39A pad where Apollo 11 launched to Moon; ispace lander Resilience has communicated as planned on its mission that saves fuel for a soft touchdown; Firefly lander Blue Ghost separated from rocket ~1 hr post-launch into elliptical Earth orbit, established comms with mission ops in Cedar Park TX, where techs determined all-systems-go for landing 2 Mar; Intuitive Machines IM-2 lander has expected launch 26 Feb 19:02 from Florida and touchdown 6-7 Mar

Credits: Firefly, ispace, SpaceX, Intuitive Machines

Weekend Edition
Fri-Mon / 10-13 January 2025

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Historic First: Two International Commercial Lunar Landers on Single Rocket Set for Jan 15 Launch

Firefly Aerospace first lunar lander ‘Blue Ghost’ carries ~150 kg of 10 NASA payloads within total weight ~490 kg, is go for launch on SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket 15 January, heads to land at Mare Crisium (18.56°N, 61.81°E) NET 1 March (~45 days later) with LEXI refurbished X-ray instrument to read Earth magnetosphere / auroras, with Honeybee Robotics (Blue Origin) PlanetVac to stir regolith / photograph dust, and with Redwire (NYSE: RDW) imaging technology to assist landing; ispace Japan second mission with ~340 kg lander Hakuto-R M2 ‘Resilience’, carrying ~5-kg RESILIENCE micro-rover, will travel 4-5 months before planned touchdown at Mare Frigoris (60.5°N, 4.6°W)

Credits: Firefly, ispace, SpaceX

New Year Edition
Friday-Monday
20 Dec 2024 – 6 Jan 2025

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Commercial Companies Preparing Lunar Landers for Launches Within 1-9 Months

 ispace, inc. (Tokyo: 9348) announced 10 Mission 2 milestones planned January to June 2025 for Resilience lander with commercial payloads and NASA project (to collect / image regolith) at Mare Frigoris ~60.5° N; aboard the same Falcon 9 will be Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost Mission 1, expecting touchdown ~March at Mare Crisium, 17° N, with 10 payloads from NASA, enterprise, academia; in February, Intuitive Machines (Nasdaq: LUNR) plans IM-2 launch via Falcon 9, arriving ~7 days later to Mons Mouton to prospect for water ice; Blue Origin Blue Moon Mark 1 lander set to launch NET March on Blue Origin New Glenn rocket, carrying 3,000 kg of payloads; Astrobotic Griffin Mission One, flying NET Fall 2025 to Nobile Region, ~85° S, will carry MoonBox™ payloads for individuals

Credits: (clockwise from upper left) ispace, SpaceX, Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines, NASA photo of Blue Origin lander, Firefly Aerospace

Tuesday / 3 December 2024

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Two Lunar Landers at Kennedy Space Center Awaiting Launch, Third Will Soon Arrive

JAXA / ispace lunar lander Mission 2 Resilience is now at KSC preparing to carry Tenacious micro rover / commercial payloads including a model house to Mare Figoris, 60.5° N, 4.6° W, is called “culmination of the Hakuto-R program; Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost lander awaits launch from LC39A during 6-day window mid-January, carries 10 payloads including for NASA CLPS to Mare Crisium after 45-day journey with orbits of Earth and Moon; Intuitive Machines Nova-C lander Athena for IM-2 mission expected to arrive soon at KSC, will carry NASA CLPS payloads to Mouton Plateau (Leibnitz); all will launch NET January via SpaceX Falcon 9

Credits: JAXA / ispace, Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines

Tuesday / 14 May 2024

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ispace Projects Significant Demand of Lunar Services, ISRO Targeting Shiv Shakti with Chandrayaan-4

Japan first commercial lunar lander company ispace projecting 138% increase in year-on-year net sales, growing to JPY¥4,033M (US$25.8M) in FY2024 possibly buoyed by international orders for lunar landers and robots, especially from USA, which may mitigate expected JPY¥12,465M ($79.8M) loss, with ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada (R) characterizing business environment as ‘quite positive‘ in light of USA-Japan Artemis agreement; Nilesh Desai, director of Space Applications Centre (SAC) in Ahmedabad, declares Shiv Shakti point (Statio Shiv Shakti by IAU designation, 69.373°S, 32.319°E) will be destination of Chandrayaan-4, building on successful Chandrayaan-3 mission, possibly returning sample closer to MSP than any previous NET 2028

 
Credits: ispace, ISRO, SAC

Tuesday / 16 April 2024

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ispace Japan and USA, Luxembourg Subsidiaries Preparing for Second and Third Moon Landing Missions

Resilience lunar lander being readied at Tsukuba JAXA facility as micro rover (1 of 5 manifested payloads to be delivered on HAKUTO-R Mission 2 NET Q4 2024), progresses to flight model build phase following successful testing of qualification model by ispace Luxembourg affiliate; Micro rover is key equipment for fulfillment of NASA regolith purchase under which both ispace Japan and USA were awarded precedent-setting $5,000 contracts; ispace USA also partnering with Draper on APEX 1.0 lander under CLPS contract, and will work with Raytheon subsidiary Blue Canyon Technologies to deploy 2 ‘Venus class’ cis-lunar relay satellites during NET 2026 mission

Pictured: (L-R) ispace-U.S. CEO Ron Garan, ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada, Ispace-Europe engineer; Credits: ispace