Latest news with #Tenacious
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.
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Science
- Yahoo
A private company wants to build a city on the moon. But it has to land a probe first
A private space exploration company based in Japan, ispace, wants to see people living on the moon by 2040. They have plans to eventually build a city on the lunar surface that would house a thousand people and welcome thousands more for tourist visits. But first, they need to land a probe on the Moon's surface successfully. In April 2023, their first attempt fell short of that goal after they lost communication with their first lander during the mission's final moments. On Thursday at 3:17 p.m. ET, ispace will make its second attempt at an uncrewed moon landing with its lunar lander called Resilience. MORE: NASA releases high-definition images of a sunset on the moon After a nearly five-month journey from the Earth to the moon that began with a January 15 launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9, the lander is scheduled to touch down in an area of the moon known as the "Sea of Cold," part of the Mare Frigoris region. The company said there are three alternative landing sites should conditions change, which would postpone the landing to another date and time. The Resilience is part of ispace's Hakuto-R Mission 2 and is currently orbiting the Moon in preparation for Thursday's landing. If all goes as planned, the spacecraft will fire its main engine and slow itself down in the moon's thin gravity before touching down softly at its landing site. Powered by solar panels, the spacecraft is carrying a mix of commercial and scientific payloads, including a water electrolyzer to test the ability to generate hydrogen and oxygen from lunar water, a food production module for growing algae as a potential food source and a deep-space radiation probe. The mission is expected to last about two weeks. If ispace is going to establish a colony on the moon, it will need to identify an ample supply of ice or water, which it will convert into fuel for a future lunar fueling station. The ability to produce fuel on the moon will enable the company to transport people back and forth between the Earth and the moon. MORE: NASA catches a glimpse of 'city-killer' asteroid before it disappears until 2028 After landing, a small rover called Tenacious will deploy to explore the lunar surface, collect soil samples and transmit HD video and telemetry back to Earth. The rover is also carrying a tiny art installation: a red-painted "Moonhouse" sculpture by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg is mounted to the front of the vehicle. "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 stepping stone 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," ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada said in a statement. A private company wants to build a city on the moon. But it has to land a probe first originally appeared on
6 hours ago
- Science
A private company wants to build a city on the moon. But it has to land a probe first
A private space exploration company based in Japan, ispace, wants to see people living on the moon by 2040. They have plans to eventually build a city on the lunar surface that would house a thousand people and welcome thousands more for tourist visits. But first, they need to land a probe on the Moon's surface successfully. In April 2023, their first attempt fell short of that goal after they lost communication with their first lander during the mission's final moments. On Thursday at 3:17 p.m. ET, ispace will make its second attempt at an uncrewed moon landing with its lunar lander called Resilience. After a nearly five-month journey from the Earth to the moon that began with a January 15 launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9, the lander is scheduled to touch down in an area of the moon known as the "Sea of Cold," part of the Mare Frigoris region. The company said there are three alternative landing sites should conditions change, which would postpone the landing to another date and time. The Resilience is part of ispace's Hakuto-R Mission 2 and is currently orbiting the Moon in preparation for Thursday's landing. If all goes as planned, the spacecraft will fire its main engine and slow itself down in the moon's thin gravity before touching down softly at its landing site. Powered by solar panels, the spacecraft is carrying a mix of commercial and scientific payloads, including a water electrolyzer to test the ability to generate hydrogen and oxygen from lunar water, a food production module for growing algae as a potential food source and a deep-space radiation probe. The mission is expected to last about two weeks. If ispace is going to establish a colony on the moon, it will need to identify an ample supply of ice or water, which it will convert into fuel for a future lunar fueling station. The ability to produce fuel on the moon will enable the company to transport people back and forth between the Earth and the moon. After landing, a small rover called Tenacious will deploy to explore the lunar surface, collect soil samples and transmit HD video and telemetry back to Earth. The rover is also carrying a tiny art installation: a red-painted "Moonhouse" sculpture by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg is mounted to the front of the vehicle. "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 stepping stone 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," ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada said in a statement.
Digital Trends
11 hours ago
- Business
- Digital Trends
How to watch a historic moon landing on Thursday
After failing to nail a lunar landing in 2023, ispace is once again vying to become the first commercial company in Japan to successfully perform a soft landing on the moon. It's also set to deploy the first European-built lunar rover. The Tokyo-based startup is aiming to perform a controlled touchdown of the Resilience lander near the moon's North Pole in the region known as Mare Frigoris. Resilience, part of ispace's Hakuto-R Mission 2, was launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on January 15. Besides demonstrating ispace's lunar transportation capabilities, the mission will also test several advanced communication systems, and deploy a number of science payloads. It will also deliver to the lunar surface a micro-rover, called Tenacious. The vehicle will collect soil samples and conduct experiments during its two-week exploration. As part of a cultural program for the mission, Tenacious will drop off a miniature wooden cottage artwork called Moonhouse, designed by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg. The mission marks ispace's second attempt at a lunar landing, following an earlier one that ended in failure in April 2023 when the lander lost contact with the mission team during its final descent. The following year, Texas-based Intuitive Machines performed a successful lunar landing in February 2024, though soon after touchdown, the Odysseus lander tipped to a 30-degree angle. Despite the unexpected development, all of its instrument payloads remained functional, and the mission was deemed a success for the private firm. And then in March this year, another commercial company, Texas-based Firefly Aerospace, became the first commercial firm to achieve a fully successful soft landing on the moon when its Blue Ghost Mission 1 lander remained stable and upright following touchdown. The lander operated for about two weeks before losing power due to the onset of a lunar night. Interest in moon exploration among private firms has increased in recent years due to advances in technology, lower launch costs, government partnerships, and the prospect of mining lunar resources, all factors that are making our nearest neighbor an exciting new commercial and strategic frontier. How to watch A livestream of ispace's attempted landing will begin at 2:10 p.m. ET on Thursday, June 5, which is 3:10 a.m. Japan time on Friday, June 6. The ispace team is currently targeting around 3:15 p.m. ET (4:17 a.m. Japan time) for the landing, though this could change. For the latest updates, be sure to check ispace's X account. You can watch the landing attempt via the video player embedded at the top of this page.
Irish Independent
14 hours ago
- Science
- Irish Independent
First European-built rover ‘Tenacious' to land on the moon today
©Telegraph Media Group Holdings Ltd The first European moon rover is due to land on the lunar surface today. Named Tenacious, the rover is less than 50cm long and can carry a payload of less than half a kilogram. Built by the European arm of Japanese lunar exploration company Ispace, it will be controlled by ground staff in Luxembourg, who will be able to drive it at up to four inches per second in near real time, using a video camera mounted on its front panel.
