SpaceX’s Falcon 9’s take-off was supposed to take place from Cape Canaveral a few days ago. After an initial adjournment on 30 November to allow final scrutiny, the result led to a new postponement for an indefinite period.
iSpace is a start-up that has survived the times. It was based on the work of a team that had responded for the XPrize challenge, whose goal was to send a rover to the Moon by 2018. No winner. Google withdraws from the challenge, which ends up disappearing, but iSpace continued to work on its lunar lander with its program Hakuto-R.
The first private mission to the Moon in history
iSpace’s Hakuto-R program has two missions: a first in the coming days to test the lander’s ability to land on lunar soil, and a second in 2024 with an additional rover. Like any future program mission, Hakuto-R M1 carries private and public payloads.
After launch, Hakuto-R M1’s journey will last several months, during which the probe will gradually increase its altitude in Earth orbit until it injects itself into a translunar orbit. The probe will then remain in lunar orbit for two weeks before touching down in the Atlas Crater on the southeastern edge of the Frigoris Sea, a location that allows the probe to be illuminated by the Sun.
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