TOKYO, Sept 12 (Askume) – Japanese space exploration company ispace (9348.T) will launch a second lunar landing mission in early December, CEO Takeshi Hakamada said on Thursday.
Hakamada said “Hakuto-R Mission 2” will launch an ispace spacecraft from Florida using a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and attempt to land on the moon after four to five months of spaceflight.
“I am very pleased that our next attempt to land on the Moon is due to take place soon,” he said at a press conference. The second mission is due to follow ispace’s first landing attempt in April 2023, but the attempt was delayed due to an error in altitude calculations . It failed at the last moment.
The Tokyo-based startup aims to follow the success of U.S.-based Intuitive Machines (LUNR.O) , which achieved the world’s first private moon landing in February.
Hakamada founded ispace in 2010.
The Moon is an emerging front line in the race to find water, fuel and other resources to sustain human life.National missions from India , Japan and China have landed on the lunar surface since last year.
As part of the Artemis program , the United States plans to make the first astronaut landing on the Moon in half a century, in 2026 .
