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A Japanese space start-up will try to become the first private company to send a lander to the moon on Tuesday.
If all goes according to plan, ispace’s Hakuto-R Mission 1 lander will begin its descent towards the lunar surface around 1540 GMT.
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It will slow its orbit around 100 kilometers above the Moon, then adjust its speed and altitude for a “soft landing” about an hour later.
Success is far from guaranteed. In April 2019, the Israeli organization SpaceIL witnessed their lander crash into the lunar surface.
ispace has announced three alternative landing sites and may change the moon landing date to April 26, May 1 or May 3, depending on circumstances.
Takeshi Hakamada, founder and CEO of ispace, said earlier this month: “What we have achieved so far has been a remarkable achievement and we have applied the lessons learned from this flight to our future missions. middle.”
“The stage is set. I look forward to witnessing this historic day, marking the beginning of a new era of commercial lunar missions.”
The lander, which is just over two meters tall and weighs 340 kilograms, has been in lunar orbit since last month.
After several delays, it launched from Earth in December on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.
So far, only the U.S., Russia and China have managed to send robots to the lunar surface through government-funded projects.
However, Japan and the United States announced last year that they would collaborate on a plan to send a Japanese astronaut to the moon by the end of this decade.
The lander carried several lunar rovers, including a miniature Japanese model measuring only 8 centimeters, which was jointly developed by Japan’s space agency and toymaker Takara Tomy.
The mission is also being closely watched by the United Arab Emirates, whose Rashid rover is on the lander as part of the country’s expanding space program.
The Gulf state is new to the space race but sent a probe to Mars orbit in 2021. If its probe lands successfully, it will be the Arab world’s first lunar mission.
Hakuto means “White Rabbit” in Japanese, a reference to Japanese folklore where the white rabbit lives on the moon.
The project was one of five finalists in Google’s Lunar X Prize competition to send a rover to the moon by the 2018 deadline, but there was no winner.
ispace, which has just 200 employees, says it “aims to extend the scope of human life into space and create a sustainable world by providing high-frequency, low-cost transportation services to the moon.”
Hakamada touted the mission as laying the groundwork for “unlocking the moon’s potential and transforming it into a strong and vibrant economy.”
The company believes the moon will support 1,000 people by 2040, with 10,000 more people visiting each year.
It is planning a second mission, tentatively scheduled for next year, that will include landing on the moon and deploying its own rover.
read more:
Musk’s Starship explodes minutes after first test flight
UAE’s Rashid rover, Arab region’s first moon mission, sets landing date target
Military threats in space are ‘substantially increasing’: US Space Force chief
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