By SHOKO TAMAKI/ Staff Writer
December 11, 2022 at 19:02 JST
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in the U.S. state of Florida on Dec. 11, transporting a lunar lander developed by a Japanese space exploration startup. (Image from live streaming by SpaceX)
A Japanese startup launched an uncrewed lunar lander from the United States on Dec. 11 in a quest to become the first private-sector company to land a spacecraft on the moon.
The craft developed by Tokyo-based ispace Inc. lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The craft will head to the moon in a trip spanning four and a half months.
The Hakuto-R space mission calls for the lander to journey approximately 1.5 million kilometers over the course of a month or so before heading to the moon to touch down in a region called Mare Frigoris, or Sea of Cold.
The craft is carrying a lunar surface exploration robot jointly developed primarily by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and toymaker Tomy Co., a lunar rover from the United Arab Emirates and five other payloads.
It will mark the first attempt by Japan to land a spacecraft on the moon after JAXA aborted a mission last month to send its Omotenashi lander there.
The project will test if the robot, rover and other devices are able to move around the lunar surface to transmit data to Earth while receiving power and directions from the lander.
Officials of ispace said a second lunar lander is scheduled to be launched in 2024 with an exploration rover to be developed by the company.
It plans to start commercially marketing data collected on the moon, in addition to transporting other companies’ payloads.
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