Latest news with #TakeshiHakamada
The Herald Scotland
an hour ago
- Science
- The Herald Scotland
Private Japanese lunar lander heads towards touchdown in the Moon's far north
The encore comes two years after the company's first moonshot ended in a crash landing, giving rise to the name Resilience for its successor lander. Resilience holds a rover with a shovel to gather lunar dirt as well as a Swedish artist's toy-size red house that will be lowered onto the Moon's dusty surface. Long the province of governments, the Moon became a target of private outfits in 2019, with more flops than wins along the way. Launched in January from Florida on a long, roundabout journey, Resilience entered lunar orbit last month. Deployment of @Firefly_Space's Blue Ghost lunar lander confirmed — SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 15, 2025 It shared a SpaceX ride with Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost, which reached the Moon faster and became the first private entity to successfully land there in March. Another US company, Intuitive Machines, arrived at the Moon a few days after Firefly. But the tall, spindly lander face-planted in a crater near the Moon's south pole and was declared dead within hours. Resilience is targeting the top of the Moon, a less forbidding place than the shadowy bottom. The ispace team chose a flat area with few boulders in Mare Frigoris or Sea of Cold, a long and narrow region full of craters and ancient lava flows that stretches across the near side's northern tier. Once settled with power and communication flowing, the 7.5-foot Resilience will beam back pictures, expected several hours or more after touchdown. It will be at least the weekend, according to ispace, before the lander lowers the piggybacking rover onto the lunar surface. Made of carbon fibre-reinforced plastic with four wheels, ispace's European-built rover — named Tenacious — sports a high-definition camera to scout out the area and a shovel to scoop up some lunar dirt for Nasa. The rover, weighing just five kilograms, will stick close to the lander, going in circles at a speed of less than one inch per second. It is capable of venturing up to two-thirds of a mile from the lander and should be operational throughout the two-week mission, the period of daylight. Besides science and tech experiments, there is an artistic touch. The rover holds a tiny, Swedish-style red cottage with white trim and a green door, dubbed the Moonhouse by creator Mikael Genberg, for placement on the lunar surface. Takeshi Hakamada, CEO and founder of ispace, considers the latest moonshot 'merely a stepping stone', with its next, much bigger lander launching by 2027 with Nasa involvement, and even more to follow. 'We're not trying to corner the market. We're trying to build the market,' Jeremy Fix, chief engineer for ispace's US subsidiary, said at a conference last month. 'It's a huge market, a huge potential.' Mr Fix noted that ispace, like other businesses, does not have 'infinite funds' and cannot afford repeated failures. While not divulging the cost of the current mission, company officials said it is less than the first one which exceeded 100 million dollars.
Nahar Net
an hour ago
- Science
- Nahar Net
Private Japanese lunar lander heads toward touchdown in moon's far north
by Naharnet Newsdesk 05 June 2025, 16:14 A private lunar lander from Japan is closing in on the moon, aiming for a touchdown in the unexplored far north with a mini rover. The moon landing attempt by Tokyo-based company ispace on Friday Japan time is the latest entry in the rapidly expanding commercial lunar rush. The encore comes two years after the company's first moonshot ended in a crash landing, giving rise to the name Resilience for its successor lander. Resilience holds a rover with a shovel to gather lunar dirt as well as a Swedish artist's toy-size red house that will be lowered onto the moon's dusty surface. Long the province of governments, the moon became a target of private outfits in 2019, with more flops than wins along the way. Launched in January from Florida on a long, roundabout journey, Resilience entered lunar orbit last month. It shared a SpaceX ride with Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost, which reached the moon faster and became the first private entity to successfully land there in March. Another U.S. company, Intuitive Machines, arrived at the moon a few days after Firefly. But the tall, spindly lander face-planted in a crater near the moon's south pole and was declared dead within hours. Resilience is targeting the top of the moon, a less forbidding place than the shadowy bottom. The ispace team chose a flat area with few boulders in Mare Frigoris or Sea of Cold, a long and narrow region full of craters and ancient lava flows that stretches across the near side's northern tier. Once settled with power and communication flowing, the 7.5-foot (2.3-meter) Resilience will lower the piggybacking rover onto the lunar surface. Made of carbon fiber-reinforced plastic with four wheels, ispace's European-built rover — named Tenacious — sports a high-definition camera to scout out the area and a shovel to scoop up some lunar dirt for NASA. The rover, weighing just 11 pounds (5 kilograms), will stick close to the lander, going in circles at a speed of less than one inch (a couple centimeters) per second. Besides science and tech experiments, there's an artistic touch. The rover holds a tiny, Swedish-style red cottage with white trim and a green door, dubbed the Moonhouse by creator Mikael Genberg, for placement on the lunar surface. Takeshi Hakamada, CEO and founder of ispace, considers the latest moonshot "merely a steppingstone," with its next, much bigger lander launching by 2027 with NASA involvement, and even more to follow. "We're not trying to corner the market. We're trying to build the market," Jeremy Fix, chief engineer for ispace's U.S. subsidiary, said at a conference last month. "It's a huge market, a huge potential." Fix noted that ispace, like other businesses, does not have "infinite funds" and cannot afford repeated failures. While not divulging the cost of the current mission, company officials said it's less than the first one which exceeded $100 million. Two other U.S. companies are aiming for moon landings by year's end: Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and Astrobotic Technology. Astrobotic's first lunar lander missed the moon altogether in 2024 and came crashing back through Earth's atmosphere. For decades, governments competed to get to the moon. Only five countries have pulled off successful robotic lunar landings: Russia, the U.S., China, India and Japan. Of those, only the U.S. has landed people on the moon: 12 NASA astronauts from 1969 through 1972. NASA expects to send four astronauts around the moon next year. That would be followed a year or more later by the first lunar landing by a crew in more than a half-century, with SpaceX's Starship providing the lift from lunar orbit all the way down to the surface. China also has moon landing plans for its own astronauts by 2030.
New York Times
an hour ago
- Business
- New York Times
How to Watch a Japanese Company Try to Land on the Moon's Surface
A Japanese company is hoping that the second time's the charm for putting a robotic lander on the moon. Ispace of Tokyo is among the private companies that have emerged in recent years aiming to establish a profitable business by sending experiments and other payloads to the surface of the moon. Its first spacecraft made it to lunar orbit in 2023, but crashed as it attempted to land. Its second spacecraft, named Resilience, launched in January and has been taking a roundabout path to the moon, entering orbit last month. Resilience is now ready to descend to the lunar surface, and Ispace hopes that it will arrive there intact. When is the moon landing, and how can I watch it? Resilience, also known as the Hakuto-R Mission 2 lander, is scheduled to land at 3:17 p.m. Eastern time Thursday. (It will be Friday at the company's mission control in Tokyo.) Ispace will provide live coverage of the landing beginning at 2:10 p.m. Eastern time. What is Ispace, and what happened during its last moon mission? Ispace emerged from a Japanese team that had aimed to win the Google Lunar X Prize, which offered $20 million for the first privately financed venture to land on the moon. None of the X Prize teams got off the ground before the competition expired in 2018. Takeshi Hakamada, the leader of the Japanese X Prize team, raised private financing to push forward and is the chief executive of Ispace. Do You See Craters or Bumps on the Moon's Surface? A picture taken recently by a Japanese company's spacecraft shows how your interpretation of objective reality can be tested by the power of illusion. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
RTÉ News
an hour ago
- Science
- RTÉ News
Japanese startup to attempt Moon landing
A Japanese startup will attempt a tricky lunar touchdown tomorrow with an unmanned lander named Resilience, two years after its first try which crashed onto the Moon's surface. If successful, it will be only the third private mission to the Earth's rocky natural satellite ever completed, and the first by a company based outside the United States. The startup, ispace, says touchdown is expected at 4:17am Japan time (07:17pm GMT Thursday) with the potentially nail-biting attempt streamed on its website. Resilience is "ready to attempt a historic landing on the Moon" and "we are confident in our preparations for success", ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada said. "We have leveraged the operational experience gained in Mission 1 and during this current voyage to the Moon," he said in a statement. Only five nations have soft-landed spacecraft on the Moon; the Soviet Union, the United States, China, India and Japan. And now companies are vying to offer cheaper and more frequent space exploration opportunities than governments. Last year, the Houston-based Intuitive Machines became the first private enterprise to touch down on the Moon. Although its uncrewed craft landed at the wrong angle, it was still able to complete tests and send photos. Then in March this year, Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost, launched on the same SpaceX rocket as ispace's Resilience and was successful in its lunar landing attempt. Despite their rocket ride-share, Resilience took longer to reach the Moon than Blue Ghost, and ispace is now hoping for its own moment of glory, after its first mission resulted in an unsalvageable "hard landing" in 2023. Landing on the Moon is highly challenging as spacecraft must rely on precisely controlled thruster burning to slow their descent. Intuitive Machines' second attempt at a Moon landing ended in disappointment in late March. Its spacecraft Athena, designed to touch down on a spot called the Mons Mouton plateau -closer to the lunar south pole than any previous mission - tipped over and was unable to recharge its solar-powered batteries. Meanwhile another Japanese startup, Space One, has been trying to become the country's first private firm to put a satellite into orbit. Its latest rocket launch attempt in December blasted off but was later seen spiraling downwards in the distance as the company said the launch had to be terminated.
Western Telegraph
an hour ago
- Science
- Western Telegraph
Private Japanese lunar lander heads towards touchdown in the Moon's far north
The Moon landing attempt by Tokyo-based company ispace on Friday Japan time is the latest entry in the rapidly expanding commercial lunar rush. The encore comes two years after the company's first moonshot ended in a crash landing, giving rise to the name Resilience for its successor lander. Resilience holds a rover with a shovel to gather lunar dirt as well as a Swedish artist's toy-size red house that will be lowered onto the Moon's dusty surface. Long the province of governments, the Moon became a target of private outfits in 2019, with more flops than wins along the way. Launched in January from Florida on a long, roundabout journey, Resilience entered lunar orbit last month. Deployment of @Firefly_Space's Blue Ghost lunar lander confirmed — SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 15, 2025 It shared a SpaceX ride with Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost, which reached the Moon faster and became the first private entity to successfully land there in March. Another US company, Intuitive Machines, arrived at the Moon a few days after Firefly. But the tall, spindly lander face-planted in a crater near the Moon's south pole and was declared dead within hours. Resilience is targeting the top of the Moon, a less forbidding place than the shadowy bottom. The ispace team chose a flat area with few boulders in Mare Frigoris or Sea of Cold, a long and narrow region full of craters and ancient lava flows that stretches across the near side's northern tier. Once settled with power and communication flowing, the 7.5-foot Resilience will beam back pictures, expected several hours or more after touchdown. It will be at least the weekend, according to ispace, before the lander lowers the piggybacking rover onto the lunar surface. Made of carbon fibre-reinforced plastic with four wheels, ispace's European-built rover — named Tenacious — sports a high-definition camera to scout out the area and a shovel to scoop up some lunar dirt for Nasa. The rover, weighing just five kilograms, will stick close to the lander, going in circles at a speed of less than one inch per second. It is capable of venturing up to two-thirds of a mile from the lander and should be operational throughout the two-week mission, the period of daylight. Besides science and tech experiments, there is an artistic touch. The rover holds a tiny, Swedish-style red cottage with white trim and a green door, dubbed the Moonhouse by creator Mikael Genberg, for placement on the lunar surface. Takeshi Hakamada, CEO and founder of ispace, considers the latest moonshot 'merely a stepping stone', with its next, much bigger lander launching by 2027 with Nasa involvement, and even more to follow. 'We're not trying to corner the market. We're trying to build the market,' Jeremy Fix, chief engineer for ispace's US subsidiary, said at a conference last month. 'It's a huge market, a huge potential.' Mr Fix noted that ispace, like other businesses, does not have 'infinite funds' and cannot afford repeated failures. While not divulging the cost of the current mission, company officials said it is less than the first one which exceeded 100 million dollars.
