Private Japanese lunar lander enters orbit around moon ahead of a June touchdown
This photo provided by ispace in January 2025 shows the company's Micro Rover. (ispace via AP)
A private lunar lander from Japan is now circling the moon, with just another month to go before it attempts a touchdown.
Tokyo-based ispace said Wednesday morning its Resilience lander entered lunar orbit.
'The countdown to lunar landing has now officially begun,' the company said in a statement.
SpaceX launched Resilience with U.S-based Firefly Aerospace's lunar lander in January. Firefly got there first in March, becoming the first private outfit to successfully land a spacecraft on the moon without crashing or falling over. Another American company, Intuitive Machines, landed a spacecraft on the moon a few days later, but it ended up sideways in a crater.
Now it's ispace's turn. It's targeting the first week of June for Resilience's touchdown. The company's first lander crashed into the moon in 2023.
The lander holds a mini rover equipped with a scoop to gather lunar dirt for analysis as well as other experiments.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Japan Times
an hour ago
- Japan Times
Middle- to old-age depression may be tied to dementia
Abnormal tau protein causing dementia accumulates in the brains of middle- to old-age patients with mood disorders, such as depression, at a higher rate than in their healthy counterparts, a study has found. The study, led by Japan's National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology, or QST, is expected to lead to early detection and treatments based on objective diagnoses of dementia, because the cognitive functions of participating patients were normal at the time of analysis. The QST in 2020 developed a method to create high-definition images of tau protein in brains by using positron emission tomography. The research team examined 52 patients diagnosed at age 40 or more with mood disorders, such as depression and bipolar disorder, and 47 healthy individuals of the same age group to check the presence and distribution of brain lesions caused by tau protein accumulation. Lesions were found in 50% of the patients and 14.9% of the healthy individuals. In patients with symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations, amounts of tau protein accumulation were larger in specific regions, such as the striatum and the frontal lobe. The team also analyzed the results of 208 autopsies of brains donated after death. Brain lesions caused by tau protein accumulation were seen in 57.1% of the 21 cases who developed mood disorders age 40 or older. Some of them later developed dementia, and it took an average of seven years from the diagnosis of mood disorder until the onset of dementia symptoms.
Japan Times
20 hours ago
- Japan Times
TSMC and Tokyo University team up to establish a chip lab
The University of Tokyo and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) have opened a research laboratory where they will be working together on chip-related technologies and supporting educational and research and development opportunities. 'Today is a milestone occasion for TSMC, as it marks the establishment of our first joint laboratory with a university outside of Taiwan," said Y.J. Mii, a TSMC executive vice president, during a news conference Thursday at the University of Tokyo. The university and chipmaker said the project will mainly focus on research, education and talent incubation. In chips, they will work on materials, devices and designs. They are also planning to engage in chip-prototyping education. Makoto Ikeda, a professor at the Graduate School of Engineering at the University of Tokyo, said American and European universities have been boosting efforts in chip-prototyping education over the past few years. 'I think the University of Tokyo has fallen quite behind in this area. In that sense, I want to use opportunities like this to catch up with the world, or even get ahead,' said Ikeda, who will be a co-director of the new lab. Mii said due to the geographical proximity of Japan and Taiwan, TSMC and the university will be able to communicate effectively and share resources smoothly. The facility, which will be at the university's main campus in Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo, will provide educational support for doctoral students and internship programs. Research findings from the laboratory are expected to be utilized by TSMC's research and development and manufacturing operations. The academic-industry partnership goes back to 2019, when the university and TSMC announced an alliance to conduct research on next-generation chips. They stressed at the time the importance of developing energy-efficient, specialized semiconductors, rather than general-purpose chips, given that the volume of data will further increase with AI processing needs. Since 2019, the university and TSMC have worked on a total of 21 projects together. As Japan is aiming to revamp its chip industry, which once dominated the global semiconductor market, the country has strengthened ties with TSMC in recent years. TSMC has already built a plant in the town of Kikuyo in Kumamoto Prefecture. Operations there began in December. Construction of a second plant in the same prefecture is scheduled to begin in the second half of the year, according to news reports. The initial plan was to start the construction in the first quarter of the year, but that was delayed. The Kumamoto Prefectural Government is keen to have a third TSMC plant that can produce cutting-edge chips, but no such plan has been formally announced. The Japanese government has offered over ¥1 trillion ($6.9 billion) in subsidies to help TSMC build the first two plants, as it wants to shore up economic security and increase chip output inside the country. With Japan looking to further revitalize the domestic chip industry, developing chip-related skills is essential. More schools, including Kumamoto University, are strengthening chip-related education programs.
Japan Times
a day ago
- Japan Times
Japan enacts law to turn science council into special entity
Parliament on Wednesday passed into law a bill to convert the Science Council of Japan from a state organization into a special public corporation. The new law for the council, which represents the country's scientific community, will come into effect in October 2026. In a plenary meeting of the House of Councilors, the upper chamber of parliament, the bill was approved by a majority vote with support from the ruling bloc and Nippon Ishin no Kai, an opposition party, following its passage last month at the House of Representatives, the lower chamber. The SCJ had called for revising the bill due to concerns about its independence. Meanwhile, an amendment proposed by the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan was voted down Tuesday at the Cabinet Committee of the Upper House. Under the new law, the council will be positioned as a "representative organization for Japanese scientists at home and abroad," and the government will provide necessary financial support. The law will newly establish an evaluation committee and auditors, to be appointed by the prime minister, to check the council's activities and finances. The SCJ will continue to hold the right to make recommendations to the government on science and technology policies. The law expands the number of council members from 210 to 250. Newcomers will be approved through a vote in the council's general meeting, after being nominated by a selection committee comprising council members. An advisory committee of outside experts will be able to give opinions on the nomination policy. In 2020, then-Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga took the unprecedented step of rejecting the appointments of six council member nominees, sparking a debate over how the body should be structured. In 2023, the government compiled a bill to change the council's membership selection method, but gave up submitting it to parliament due to strong opposition from the council. After discussions with experts, the government decided to seek a new law that turns the body into a corporation. SCJ President Mamoru Mitsuishi had released a statement on the new law, saying, "Concerns have not been eliminated from the perspective of autonomy and independence." At its general meeting in April, the SCJ approved by a majority vote a resolution seeking the bill's revision.
