Today the Japanese Lader Resilience of ISPACE tries a new wing: experiments, art and space cooperations to build a future lunar economy.
The Japanese ISPA is ready to write a new chapter of lunar exploration. After the failed attempt of 2023, this week the company will return to challenge the lunar gravity with Resilience, its second Lander. The purpose is not only to land on the moon, but also to lay the foundations for a future commercial and scientific presence on our satellite. The wing is scheduled for 9:17 pm (Ora Otaliana) of June 5, slightly anticipated with respect to the initial forecasts.
The maneuver will take place in the seaside seaside region, in thenorthern hemisphere of the visible side of the moon. The change of the time was communicated by ISPEPE after a review of the orbital maneuvers made on May 28, when Resilience was brought to a circular orbit 100 kilometers of altitude.
The long road to the moon. Launched in January on board a Falcon 9 rocket of Spacex, the same flight that also transported the Firefly Aerospace Lander Blue 1 Lander (which touched the moon successfully on March 2), Resilience followed a low energy orbit, reaching a maximum distance of 1.1 million kilometers from the earth before inserting itself in the lunar orbit on 6 May. This flight profile, albeit longer, was chosen for Save fuel and test the autonomous navigation capacity of the spacecraft.
Errors of the past. The landing attempt follows the failure of the previous mission in April 2023, when the first Lader of ISPACE crashed due to a software error that led the system to believe it was already on the surface, while still at 5 kilometers altitude. Since then, The company has strengthened its systems and improved the reliability of the software.
“We have transformed that failure into motivation,” said the founder and CEO of ISPA Takeshi Hakamada. “Now we are at the dawn of a new attempt to make history.”
Useful loads. On board Resiliences there are different loads useful for experimenting: a electrolyser For the production of oxygen and hydrogen from simulated lunar water, a test for the food production in lunar and material conditions to perform an investigation on the effects of radiation in deep space. The overall commercial value of these loads is estimated in 16 million dollars. The Rover Tenaciousdeveloped by the European Division of ISPA. Rover will collect samples of Lunar regolite.
Moonhouse. Tenacious also hosts a curious artistic project: the moonhouse, A 3D printed aluminum model of a Swedish house, painted with a special red paint paint with space conditions.
The work was conceived by the artist Mikael Genberg. The Moonhouse will be positioned manually by the rover on the lunar surface, in an area chosen to allow photographs with the land in the background. The release of the structure, just eight centimeters high, was tested at the ESA center in simulated environments.
Help from Europe. ESA provides crucial support to the Japanese mission through its network of satellite communication stations, known as extrack. The 35 meters antennas located in Spain, Argentina and Australia, together with the 15 -meter one in the French Guyana, guarantee the transmission and reception of data between the land And the Lander Resilnce. In addition, the Goonhilly commercial station in the United Kingdom contributes significantly to the support of the mission.
During the operations on the lunar surface, the commands intended for Tenacious will be sent by the ISPEPE control center in Luxembourg to the European Center of Spatial Operations (ESOC) in Germany, and then be transmitted through the ESA antennas to the Lander and finally to the Rover. The data collected by Tenacious, like the images of his cameras, will follow the reverse path to reach the earth.
Lunar economy. In addition to the Resilience mission, ISPA is already working on Two other Landers: The first, called APEX 1.0, is in development at the US headquarters for Mission 3, part of the Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program of the NASA. Initially scheduled for 2026, the launch was postponed to 2027 following a change in the engines.
In parallel, in Japan, the Lander of Mission 4 is under construction, with a completely new design called Serie 3, financed with 80 million dollars by the Japanese government. This vehicle It will also transport a satellite for the search for ice and metals in the lunar subsoildeveloped in collaboration with Jaxa. The company has already outlined a road map that provides others Three missions between 2028 and 2029.
beyond the moon. Despite a clear loss of about 12 billion yen (over 76 million euros) in the previous year, ISPA is continuing to invest in its future, supported by important loans.
“Our real goal is to create a cis-long economy,” explained Hakamada. «We want to economically and socially connect the earth and the moon. The wing is only the first step ». With Resilience now close to touching the lunar soil, Japan – and ISPACE in particular – are applying to become protagonists in the nascent Commercial race towards our natural satelliteshowing that space is no longer just land for government agencies.
