About our iSpace news
Latest news on iSpace, a Japanese startup that provides lunar transportation and exploration services. It was founded in 2010 by Takeshi Hakamada and is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.
iSpace is one of the participants in the Google Lunar X Prize competition, which aims to land a privately funded spacecraft on the moon. iSpace's mission is called Hakuto-R, which stands for Reboot. It consists of two lunar landers and two rovers that will be launched on SpaceX rockets. The first lander, M1, is scheduled to land on the moon on 25 April 2023, at 16:40 GMT. If successful, it will be the world's first commercial lunar landing by a private company. The M1 lander will deploy two rovers: one developed by JAXA, Tomy and Sony, and another by the United Arab Emirates. The M1 lander will also carry various payloads to test their performance on the lunar surface. The second lander, M2, is planned to launch in 2024 and will carry iSpace's own rover.