Latest news with #Mission2
India Today
3 days ago
- Science
- India Today
Japan's ispace Moon landing Live: Resilience to perform de-orbit burn shortly
Japan ispace's Resilience spacecraft Landing Live Updates: Resilience spacecraft is targetting to land in Moon's Mare Frigoris region. It is a vast, dark basaltic plain in the Moon's Northern Hemisphere, stretching over 1,400 kilometres in diameter. While Resilience was developed by ispace, the rover it is carrying dubbed Tenacious was developed by ispace-Europe in part with funding from the Luxembourg Space Agency through a European Space Agency (ESA) contract. This shows the global collaboration that goes behind the development of a lunar mission. ESA is also providing ground station tracking services to the Japanese company. “I am very proud to announce that once again, on June 6, 2025, JST, ispace will attempt a historic landing on the Moon as part of Mission 2. Our goal is to build the cislunar economy, one in which the Moon and Earth are economically and socially connected. We view the success of the lunar landing as merely a steppingstone toward that goal. We strongly believe that this endeavor and its long-term success will contribute to making life on Earth sustainable for all humanity," Takeshi Hakamada, ispace Founder & CEO said. Resilience has travelled approximately 1.1 million kilometres to get to the Moon. That’s more than three times the distance between Earth and the Moon. "After months of preparation and precision flying, the final hour is here. ispace crew in Japan and Luxembourg are ready," says isapce. The Resilience spacecraft will perform a short-duration de-orbit insertion burn to bring it closer to the lunar surface before landing sequence begins. The Resilience spacecraft also carries a 5 kg rover, named Tenacious, in the payload bay at the top of the lander, with a deployment device to set the rover on the lunar surface. The rover is 26 cm tall, 31.5 cm wide, and 54 cm long. It is built of carbon-fiber reinforced plastics. It has a forward mounted HD camera. Communications with the ground will be transmitted through the lander. A shovel mounted on front of the rover will be used to collect a lunar sample, which will be photographed by the HD camera. The decision to target Mare Frigoris is strategic. Unlike the rugged Atlas crater, where ispace’s first lander crashed, Mare Frigoris offers a flatter, more navigable terrain, which increases the chances of a safe landing. According to ispace, the site was chosen for its “flexibility,†providing a broad, relatively smooth area that is less risky for touchdown. Additionally, the location offers extended periods of sunlight and uninterrupted communication with Earthâ€'two critical factors for the lander’s operations and the success of its scientific payloads. Landing in Mare Frigoris also represents a milestone in lunar exploration, as it would be the most northerly landing ever attempted on the Moon. The spacecraft will attempt a brave landing at a site called Mare Frigoris, or the “Sea of Cold.†Mare Frigoris is a vast, dark basaltic plain in the Moon’s northern hemisphere, stretching over 1,400 kilometers in diameter. Its Latin name translates to “Sea of Cold,†reflecting its location in the Moon’s far north, just above the prominent Mare Imbrium and east of Mare Serenitatis. The region is geologically significant, with surface materials dating back to different lunar epochs, making it a target of interest for scientific study. Resilience (Hakuto Mission 2) is an ispace (Japan) lunar lander and rover mission planned as a follow-on to the 2022 Mission 1. The mission launched on 15 January 2025 on a Falcon 9 booster from Cape Canaveral, along with the CLPS Blue Ghost mission. It separated and deployed successfully approximately 90 minutes after launch. It reached the Moon after a 4 month low-energy trajectory involving a lunar flyby. It went into lunar orbit May 6. The Resilience spacecraft is currently in an orbit just 100 kilometres above the Moon. The spacecraft has been slowly lowering its orbit since its insertion into the lunar orbit just a few days ago. Japan's ispace mission control team will shortly begin the landing sequence to initiate the descent procedure for the spacecraft. Welcome to the India Today LIVE Blog as we bring you all the real-time updates from the Moon this time. Yes, you read that right. Moon!! Japan's private company ispace is all set to attempt a daring landing attempt on the Moon.
India Today
3 days ago
- Science
- India Today
Japan's ispace Moon landing Live: Resilience spacecraft to begin descent shortly
'I am very proud to announce that once again, on June 6, 2025, JST, ispace will attempt a historic landing on the Moon as part of Mission 2. Our goal is to build the cislunar economy, one in which the Moon and Earth are economically and socially connected. We view the success of the lunar landing as merely a steppingstone toward that goal. We strongly believe that this endeavor and its long-term success will contribute to making life on Earth sustainable for all humanity," Takeshi Hakamada, ispace Founder & CEO said. Resilience has travelled approximately 1.1 million kilometres to get to the Moon. That's more than three times the distance between Earth and the Moon. "After months of preparation and precision flying, the final hour is here. ispace crew in Japan and Luxembourg are ready," says isapce. The Resilience spacecraft will perform a short-duration de-orbit insertion burn to bring it closer to the lunar surface before landing sequence begins. The Resilience spacecraft also carries a 5 kg rover, named Tenacious, in the payload bay at the top of the lander, with a deployment device to set the rover on the lunar surface. The rover is 26 cm tall, 31.5 cm wide, and 54 cm long. It is built of carbon-fiber reinforced plastics. It has a forward mounted HD camera. Communications with the ground will be transmitted through the lander. A shovel mounted on front of the rover will be used to collect a lunar sample, which will be photographed by the HD camera. The decision to target Mare Frigoris is strategic. Unlike the rugged Atlas crater, where ispace's first lander crashed, Mare Frigoris offers a flatter, more navigable terrain, which increases the chances of a safe landing. According to ispace, the site was chosen for its 'flexibility,' providing a broad, relatively smooth area that is less risky for touchdown. Additionally, the location offers extended periods of sunlight and uninterrupted communication with Earth—two critical factors for the lander's operations and the success of its scientific payloads. Landing in Mare Frigoris also represents a milestone in lunar exploration, as it would be the most northerly landing ever attempted on the Moon. The spacecraft will attempt a brave landing at a site called Mare Frigoris, or the 'Sea of Cold.' Mare Frigoris is a vast, dark basaltic plain in the Moon's northern hemisphere, stretching over 1,400 kilometers in diameter. Its Latin name translates to 'Sea of Cold,' reflecting its location in the Moon's far north, just above the prominent Mare Imbrium and east of Mare Serenitatis. The region is geologically significant, with surface materials dating back to different lunar epochs, making it a target of interest for scientific study. Resilience (Hakuto Mission 2) is an ispace (Japan) lunar lander and rover mission planned as a follow-on to the 2022 Mission 1. The mission launched on 15 January 2025 on a Falcon 9 booster from Cape Canaveral, along with the CLPS Blue Ghost mission. It separated and deployed successfully approximately 90 minutes after launch. It reached the Moon after a 4 month low-energy trajectory involving a lunar flyby. It went into lunar orbit May 6. The Resilience spacecraft is currently in an orbit just 100 kilometres above the Moon. The spacecraft has been slowly lowering its orbit since its insertion into the lunar orbit just a few days ago. Japan's ispace mission control team will shortly begin the landing sequence to initiate the descent procedure for the spacecraft. 2 hours until we attempt our second lunar landing. Our next dose of mission trivia: The Deep Space Radiation Probe (DSRP) from National Central University, Taiwan, is hitching a ride to the Moon. Its job? Measure radiation levels and detect cosmic disturbances en route.… — ispace (@ispace_inc) June 5, 2025 Welcome to the India Today LIVE Blog as we bring you all the real-time updates from the Moon this time. Yes, you read that right. Moon!! Japan's private company ispace is all set to attempt a daring landing attempt on the Moon.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Private lunar lander closing in on unexplored top of the moon
Four-and-a-half months after launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket, a privately-built Japanese moon lander is finally in position for a descent to touchdown Thursday. It comes two years after the company's first lander ran out of gas and crashed to the lunar surface. The Resilience lander, carrying cameras, a few scientific instruments and a tiny rover, was expected to drop out of a 62-mile-high orbit and touch down at 3:17 p.m. EDT near the center of Mare Frigoris — the Sea of Cold — in the moon's northern hemisphere at 60 degrees north latitude. "For Mission 2, our second attempt at landing on the moon, we will not only land the Resilience lander, but we will also use a mechanism to deploy the Tenacious rover, which we developed in house, to explore the lunar surface," Ryo Ujiie, chief technology officer of ispace, the lander's builder, said on the company's web page. "Tenacious will explore the lunar surface, deploy a customer payload and collect regolith. Resilience will continue to operate the customer payloads on board and transmit valuable telemetry data to our mission control center." The customer payload is a tiny model of a Swedish house, designed by artist Mikael Genberg. The traditionally styled red-and-white house measures just 4.7 inches long and 4 inches high and weighs just 3.5 ounces. Asked why he took on the project, which required years of planning, fund-raising and engineering, Genberg said "we have done as human beings things from time to time that (do not) seemingly have a purpose beyond just being creative." "The Eiffel Tower, for instance, I mean it's a stupid thing to build," he said. "Today, it has a purpose as maybe the most important thing to make Paris the most visited city in the world." While the "moonhouse" will survive for thousands if not millions of years in the airless environment of the moon, its custom paint will fade in the sun's harsh radiation and lunar dust will slowly coat its surface. Genberg joked that he would happily await an invitation to repaint it. The house will be dropped from the rover a few days after landing, and the team hopes to capture photos with Earth in the background. The cost of the project was not disclosed, but a spokesman said it was similar to what one might pay for a relatively large house on Earth. ispace is one of a handful of companies attempting to provide non-government transportation services to the moon for a variety of payloads ranging from science instruments to technology demonstrations. But as it turns out, getting low-cost spacecraft to the moon's surface is extremely difficult. ispace tried and failed in 2023 when its first lander ran out of propellant nearing the surface, dropping to a "hard" crash landing. Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic Technology launched its Peregrine lander in January 2024, but the spacecraft suffered a propulsion system leak and never made it to the moon. Houston-based Intuitive Machines successfully put two landers down on the lunar surface in 2024 and again earlier this year, but both spacecraft tipped over on touchdown. While each one survived its landing, neither was able to accomplish all of its pre-flight objectives. Before Thursday, only one company, Austin-based Firefly Aerospace, had successfully touched down and carried out its mission, landing the Blue Ghost spacecraft on March 2, 53 years after the final Apollo mission. Resilience and Blue Ghost were launched atop a single SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Jan. 15. The Blue Ghost lander took a direct route to the moon and carried out a successful touchdown, operating for a full two-week lunar "day." Resilience followed a longer, low-energy trajectory that carried it well past its target, using the moon's gravity to bring it back to an initially elliptical orbit and finally, using its thrusters, to the 100-kilometer (62-mile) circular orbit that set the stage for descent. Sneak peek: Where is Jermain Charlo? Hegseth orders Navy to rename USNS Harvey Milk, Jeffries calls it "a complete and total disgrace" FEMA, Trump administration react to sources saying chief did not know U.S. had a hurricane season
India Today
5 days ago
- Business
- India Today
Japan's ispace to land Resilience on the Moon: When will the landing happen?
Successfully entering lunar orbit will mark the completion of the mission's seventh milestone. (Photo: ispace) The event will be covered live by India Today Science ispace's Mission Control Center in Tokyo will oversee final orbital adjustment Resilience stands 2.3 meters tall and weighs 340 kilograms Japan's private space company ispace is on the verge of making history as its Resilience lunar lander prepares for a daring touchdown attempt on the Moon The landing, targeted for the Mare Frigoris regionâ€'also known as the "Sea of Cold" in the Moon's northern hemisphereâ€'marks the culmination of ispace's Mission 2 under the SMBC x HAKUTO-R Venture Moon program. Launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral on January 15, 2025, Resilience has traveled over one million kilometers, utilizing a low-energy transfer orbit that included a lunar flyby and a series of complex deep-space maneuvers. After months in transit, the lander successfully entered lunar orbit on May 7, 2025, following a critical nine-minute main thruster burnâ€'the mission's longest and most vital maneuver to date. The highly anticipated landing is scheduled for 12:54 a.m. IST. The event will be covered live by India Today Science, with ispace's Mission Control Center in Tokyo overseeing final orbital adjustments and system checks in the lead-up to descent. Resilience stands 2.3 meters tall and weighs 340 kilograms, carrying a suite of scientific payloads. These include a water electrolyzer experiment, an algae-based food production module, a deep space radiation monitor, and the Tenacious micro rover designed for in situ resource utilization demonstrations. The mission aims to advance sustainable lunar exploration and open new avenues for commercial activity on the Moon. Resilience has travelled over one million kilometers. (Photo: ispace) This attempt follows ispace's previous Mission 1 in 2023, which ended in a crash landing. The team has since implemented upgrades and leveraged operational lessons to enhance reliability for this mission. Success would not only mark a major achievement for ispace but also strengthen Japan's position in the rapidly evolving commercial lunar sector. If Resilience lands successfully, it will deploy the Tenacious rover and begin scientific operations, paving the way for future missions and expanded lunar infrastructure Japan's private space company ispace is on the verge of making history as its Resilience lunar lander prepares for a daring touchdown attempt on the Moon The landing, targeted for the Mare Frigoris regionâ€'also known as the "Sea of Cold" in the Moon's northern hemisphereâ€'marks the culmination of ispace's Mission 2 under the SMBC x HAKUTO-R Venture Moon program. Launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral on January 15, 2025, Resilience has traveled over one million kilometers, utilizing a low-energy transfer orbit that included a lunar flyby and a series of complex deep-space maneuvers. After months in transit, the lander successfully entered lunar orbit on May 7, 2025, following a critical nine-minute main thruster burnâ€'the mission's longest and most vital maneuver to date. The highly anticipated landing is scheduled for 12:54 a.m. IST. The event will be covered live by India Today Science, with ispace's Mission Control Center in Tokyo overseeing final orbital adjustments and system checks in the lead-up to descent. Resilience stands 2.3 meters tall and weighs 340 kilograms, carrying a suite of scientific payloads. These include a water electrolyzer experiment, an algae-based food production module, a deep space radiation monitor, and the Tenacious micro rover designed for in situ resource utilization demonstrations. The mission aims to advance sustainable lunar exploration and open new avenues for commercial activity on the Moon. Resilience has travelled over one million kilometers. (Photo: ispace) This attempt follows ispace's previous Mission 1 in 2023, which ended in a crash landing. The team has since implemented upgrades and leveraged operational lessons to enhance reliability for this mission. Success would not only mark a major achievement for ispace but also strengthen Japan's position in the rapidly evolving commercial lunar sector. If Resilience lands successfully, it will deploy the Tenacious rover and begin scientific operations, paving the way for future missions and expanded lunar infrastructure Join our WhatsApp Channel
Business Wire
31-05-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
ispace Completes Success 8 of Mission 2 Milestones
TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ispace, inc. (ispace) (TOKYO: 9348), a global lunar exploration company, announced today that the RESILIENCE lunar lander has successfully completed all orbital maneuvers while in lunar orbit and is now being prepared for its landing attempt on June 6, 2025. This marks the completion of Success 8 milestone of Mission 2 'SMBC x HAKUTO-R Venture Moon.' RESILIENCE conducted a lunar orbital control maneuver at 5:27 p.m. JST (08:27 UTC) on May 28, 2025, to move into a circular orbit around the Moon in accordance with the mission operation plan. The operation required an engine burn of approximately 10 minutes, the longest to date on Mission 2. Since then, the lander has been in a 100 km orbit around the Moon and completes a full orbit every 2 hours. After RESILIENCE completed the orbital control maneuver, ispace engineers in the Mission Control Center in Nihonbashi, Tokyo, Japan worked to confirm the precise orbit in advance of the landing sequence. The RESILIENCE lander, which reached lunar orbit on May 7, 2025 (JST), orbited the moon in an elliptical orbit with a perilune (closest point to the moon) altitude of approximately 70 km and an apolune (farthest point from the moon) altitude of approximately 5,800 km. After performing three orbital control maneuvers, it reached a circular orbit around the moon at an altitude of approximately 100 km. A lunar landing is scheduled for no earlier than June 5, 2025 (UTC) (June 6, 2025, JST). The RESILIENCE lander is scheduled to begin descent from its current circular orbit. During the descent phase, the lander will automatically fire its main propulsion system to gradually decelerate and adjust its attitude, with the goal of achieving a soft landing on the lunar surface. 'Having completed eight of 10 mission milestones, RESILIENCE is now ready to attempt a historic landing on the Moon, carrying not only the payloads of our customers but also the hopes of our employees, their families, our partners and all of our supporters,' said Takeshi Hakamada, Founder & CEO of ispace. 'We have leveraged the operational experience gained in Mission 1 and during this current voyage to the Moon, and we are confident in our preparations for success of the lunar landing.' LANDING EVENT LIVE STREAM DETAILS ispace will host a global live stream event with coverage of RESILIENCE's landing attempt on the Moon on June 6, 2025 (JST) (June 5, 2025, depending on location). The coverage will be broadcast in Japanese with English translation provided. Please see links below to watch. Before the lunar orbit insertion, RESILIENCE completed all deep space orbital maneuvers on April 24, 2025, at 10:00 UTC, returning the lander from deep space near to the Moon to complete the orbit injection. At its furthest distance, RESILIENCE was 1.1 million kilometers from Earth. Before that, RESILIENCE completed a lunar flyby, verifying operation of the main propulsion system, as well as the related guidance, control, and navigation system. Following the flyby, the lander continued its deep space journey, spending approximately two months in a low-energy transfer orbit. RESILIENCE was launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 6:11:39 UTC, Jan. 15, 2025, and was successfully deployed from the rocket at 7:44:24 UTC. The RESILIENCE lander has completed the Earth orbit as well as the lunar flyby, known as Success 5. It has completed the low energy transfer orbit with completion of all deep space and lunar orbit maneuvers is preparing for the landing sequence. Mission 2 Milestones ispace has released a transparent set of criteria known as Mission 2 Milestones between launch and landing and aims to achieve the success criteria established for each of these milestones. The results from this mission as part of the HAKUTO-R lunar exploration program, will be weighed and evaluated against the criteria and lessons learned will be incorporated into future missions already in development. Mission 2 Payloads On board the RESILIENCE lunar lander are commercial customer payloads including: Water electrolyzer equipment: From Takasago Thermal Engineering Co. Food production experiment: A self-contained module from Euglena Co. Deep space radiation probe: Developed by the Department of Space Science and Engineering, National Central University, Taiwan Commemorative alloy plate: Developed by Bandai Namco Research Institute, Inc. and modeled after 'Charter of the Universal Century' from the animation Mobile Suit Gundam UC TENACIOUS micro rover: Developed by ispace-EUROPE, this rover will explore the landing site, collect lunar regolith, and relay data back to the lander. It will be equipped with a forward-mounted HD camera and a shovel. Moonhouse: A model house by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg that will be mounted on the rover. The RESILIENCE lander will serve as a cultural artifact, carrying a UNESCO memory disk that preserves linguistic and cultural diversity. ispace is leveraging its global presence through its three business units in Japan, the U.S., and Luxembourg, for the simultaneous development of upcoming missions. Mission 2, featuring the RESILIENCE lunar lander, is led by ispace Japan and was launched on Jan. 15, 2025. It is currently scheduled to land on the Moon on June 6, 2025 (JST). During the mission, the TENACIOUS micro rover, developed by ispace Europe SA, is set to be deployed on the lunar surface to conduct a technological demonstration of regolith extraction as well as mobility on the lunar surface. Team Draper Commercial Mission 1 is also known as ispace's Mission 3. Mission 3, debuting the APEX 1.0 lunar lander, is expected to launch in 2027. The company's fourth mission, which will utilize the Series 3 lander, currently being designed in Japan, is scheduled to be launched by 2027. 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 business entities in Japan, Luxembourg, and the United States with more than 300 employees worldwide. For more information, visit: and follow us on X: @ispace_inc.
