Category Archives: ispace

Tuesday / 10 Jun 2025

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Open Lunar Foundation Seeks Shared Landing Info to Foster Mission Success

Open Lunar Foundation (OLF) seeks Moon mission success via open / non-siloed data sharing, Moon Positioning, Navigation, Timing (PNT) services, transparent coordination — for all entrepreneurs and agencies seeking to foster peaceful enduring presence for humans on the Moon that benefits all life; with 20+ infrastructure projects, 30+ research fellowships, 50+ experts, 70+ papers, 1,500+ members, OLF runs Lunar Registry database, called a Wikipedia of Moon missions, participates in UNCOPUOS, compiles lunar achievements by country: China, USA, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Europe

Credits: Open Lunar Foundation, ispace; Pictured L-R: Founder Jessy Kate Schingler, Co-founder Chelsea Robinson, Science Communications Lead Jatan Mehta, Director Carlos Alvarado Quesada 48th President of Costa Rica, PNT Project Contributor Peng Hu

Tuesday / 3 Jun 2025

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ispace Moon Lander About 100km and 2 Days From Surface

ispace Resilience Lunar Lander completes Success 8 of 10 milestones 28 May, entering 100-km altitude circular orbit with 10-min engine burn, longest to date on this privately funded Mission 2, leaves elliptical orbit 70×5,800 km reached with 9-min burn 7 May; descent to Mare Frigoris 56°N 1°E begins from 100 km, higher than 30 km of Chandrayaan 3 and 20 km of Blue Ghost; global livestream in English and Japanese begins 1 hr before expected Moon landing 19:24 UTC 5 Jun / 04:24 JST 6 Jun

Credits: ispace

Friday / 16 May 2025

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ispace Lander in Lunar Orbit, 20 Days Ahead of Anticipated Moon Landing

 ispace 340-kg lunar craft Resilience in stable Moon orbit due to ~9-minute main thruster burn ahead of final maneuvers before anticipated 5 Jun (UTC) touchdown near Mare Frigoris with 5-kg rover Tenacious; rover will shovel regolith, analyze and send data; ispace aiming to fulfill US$5,000 NASA Lunar Regolith Transfer Contract; Resilience also carries water electrolyzer, food production experiment with algae, Moonhouse by artist Mikael Genberg, deep space radiation probe, UNESCO memory disk, commemorative plaque based on Charter of the Universal Century fictional document from Japanese science fiction franchise Gundam

Credits: ispace-Inc

Tuesday / 15 April 2025

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New ispace-U.S. CEO Elizabeth Kryst Signs 2 Memorandums of Understanding

40th Space Symposium was backdrop for 2 announced collaborations; ispace-U.S. will work with Zeno Power, Tyler Bernstein Co-Founder / CEO, to develop technologies enabling survival of lunar night; demo mission planned NET 2027 with ispace APEX 1.0 next-generation lander (using Resilience-learned knowledge) and Zeno Power radioisotope power system (RPS) providing continuous, reliable heat / electricity via nuclear that solar panels cannot, during the 14-day lunar night at –173°C; ispace will work with Redwire (NYSE:RDW), President Mike Gold, 1 of 14 prime holders of CLPS IDIQ (indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity) contracts, worth US$2.6B, to pursue future CLPS contracts

Credit: ispace 

Tuesday / 8 April 2025

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ispace-U.S. Calls Together Science Advisors for Lunar Exploration

Lunar exploration company ispace (ispace-U.S.) has formed U.S. Lunar Science Advisory Board (US LSAB) in conjunction with 1 Apr naming of new CEO Elizabeth Kryst; Chair is Alan Stern, former NASA Associate Administrator; Amanda Hendrix, Planetary Science Institute, who studies Moon composition and lunar resources; Philip Metzger, University of Central Florida, who does regolith research; Lisa Gaddis, LPI, has received many NASA awards, does lunar analysis and geology; Jack Burns, Professor Emeritus of both Astrophysics and Physics, served on numerous NASA committees; Clive Neal, Professor of Planetary Geology, has overseen lunar samples, helped train NASA Astronauts

Credit: ispace (Pictured CW from upper left: Metzger, Stern, Burns, Gaddis, Hendrix, Neal) 

Tuesday / 18 March 2025

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ispace Has On-Track Mission, Receives Increased Award from Draper

ispace Hakuto-R Mission 2 aims to accomplish mission milestone 6 of 10 when it completes deep-space orbital maneuvers 24 April, affirming survivability there, ahead of 6 Jun landing at Mare Frigoris ~60°N; ispace business mission is to construct a sustainable Earth-Moon ecosystem implementing space resources; Hakuto-R is a multinational commercial lunar exploration program, includes payload development for lunar orbiting and landing; non-profit R&D company Draper releases US$7.7M additional funding to ispace-U.S. from its US$73M NASA CLPS award, for design of APEX 1.0 lander going NET 2026 H2 to Schrödinger Basin, ~75°S on Moon far side

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Credits: ispace, Draper

Friday / 24 January 2025

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Moon Landers On-Track and Planned for 2025

Firefly Blue Ghost reporting nominal operations and receiving signals from 331,000+ km distance, projected lunar landing 2 Mar; ispace lander Resilience to attempt mission Milestone 5 lunar flyby ~15 Feb after reaching 1.1M km apogee, Moon touchdown earliest date 15 May; if Intuitive Machines IM-2 launches on planned date of 26 Feb, landing expected 6-7 Mar; Blue Moon Pathfinder to launch on Blue Origin New Glenn as early as summer 2025, while Astrobotic Griffin could launch in fall

Credits: SpaceX, ispace, Firefly Aerospace, Blue Origin, Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines

Friday / 17 January 2025

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2 Landers On Their Way to the Moon, 3rd to Follow Soon

Although 9 hours is minimum travel time for Earth to Moon, two Moon landers launched 15 Jan, 01:11 EST, to arrive after 45 days (Firefly) and 4-5 months (ispace); flight was orbital number 100 for SpaceX from 39A pad where Apollo 11 launched to Moon; ispace lander Resilience has communicated as planned on its mission that saves fuel for a soft touchdown; Firefly lander Blue Ghost separated from rocket ~1 hr post-launch into elliptical Earth orbit, established comms with mission ops in Cedar Park TX, where techs determined all-systems-go for landing 2 Mar; Intuitive Machines IM-2 lander has expected launch 26 Feb 19:02 from Florida and touchdown 6-7 Mar

Credits: Firefly, ispace, SpaceX, Intuitive Machines

Weekend Edition
Fri-Mon / 10-13 January 2025

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Historic First: Two International Commercial Lunar Landers on Single Rocket Set for Jan 15 Launch

Firefly Aerospace first lunar lander ‘Blue Ghost’ carries ~150 kg of 10 NASA payloads within total weight ~490 kg, is go for launch on SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket 15 January, heads to land at Mare Crisium (18.56°N, 61.81°E) NET 1 March (~45 days later) with LEXI refurbished X-ray instrument to read Earth magnetosphere / auroras, with Honeybee Robotics (Blue Origin) PlanetVac to stir regolith / photograph dust, and with Redwire (NYSE: RDW) imaging technology to assist landing; ispace Japan second mission with ~340 kg lander Hakuto-R M2 ‘Resilience’, carrying ~5-kg RESILIENCE micro-rover, will travel 4-5 months before planned touchdown at Mare Frigoris (60.5°N, 4.6°W)

Credits: Firefly, ispace, SpaceX

New Year Edition
Friday-Monday
20 Dec 2024 – 6 Jan 2025

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Commercial Companies Preparing Lunar Landers for Launches Within 1-9 Months

 ispace, inc. (Tokyo: 9348) announced 10 Mission 2 milestones planned January to June 2025 for Resilience lander with commercial payloads and NASA project (to collect / image regolith) at Mare Frigoris ~60.5° N; aboard the same Falcon 9 will be Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost Mission 1, expecting touchdown ~March at Mare Crisium, 17° N, with 10 payloads from NASA, enterprise, academia; in February, Intuitive Machines (Nasdaq: LUNR) plans IM-2 launch via Falcon 9, arriving ~7 days later to Mons Mouton to prospect for water ice; Blue Origin Blue Moon Mark 1 lander set to launch NET March on Blue Origin New Glenn rocket, carrying 3,000 kg of payloads; Astrobotic Griffin Mission One, flying NET Fall 2025 to Nobile Region, ~85° S, will carry MoonBox™ payloads for individuals

Credits: (clockwise from upper left) ispace, SpaceX, Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines, NASA photo of Blue Origin lander, Firefly Aerospace