First special lunar mission successful?

Elon Musk’s SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket took off from the Cape Canaveral Cosmodrome in Florida on Sunday. Japanese company ispace’s lander “Hakuto-R” brought it on its way to the moon.

Due to the fuel-efficient route that uses Earth’s gravity and the sun for propulsion, it will likely take until the end of April for the lander to land there. The two American competitors plan to take a more direct route to the moon early next year. If successful, they may even get there earlier than “Hakuto-R”.

This isn’t the first time I’ve attempted a special lunar mission. For example, Israeli nonprofit Space IL launched its Beresheet probe towards the moon, but failed shortly before the finish line in 2019. During the landing maneuver, a key engine of the spacecraft failed and communication with the spacecraft was lost. It finally hit the moon. Now the Japanese are trying it after their “Hakuto-R” mission has been delayed several times.

In Japanese, Hakuto means “white rabbit” who lives on the moon in Japanese mythology. “R” means restart, reboot in English. The lunar lander, with its 2.3 meters high and 2.6 meters wide landing legs extended, weighed approximately 1000 kilograms when it took off. However, since most of this is fuel burned along the way, the lander will weigh only 340 kilograms when it lands on the moon. It can carry a load of 30 kilos.

After the arrival of “Hakuto-R”, it is expected to spend about two weeks in orbit around the moon, bringing it closer to the surface on each orbit. If all goes well, the Hakuto-R being tested in Ottobrunn, near Munich, Germany, will eventually land slowly in a region called the Atlas Crater. It carries international cargo on board, including a small rover from the United Arab Emirates and an even smaller two-wheeled robot from the Japanese state space agency Jaxa.

So far, only government programs have managed to land on the moon. Lunar exploration began in the 1950s as a heated rivalry between the United States and the former Soviet Union during the Cold War. The Soviets landed an unmanned probe on the Moon’s surface in 1959. Ten years later, the United States succeeded in launching the first manned mission, Apollo 11.

Two years ago, China was able to send a capsule to the moon and collect rock samples. With the Artemis mission of the USA, people are now forced to fly to the moon again after a long break. As part of the “Artemis 1” mission, the still unmanned space capsule “Orion” flying around the Moon is expected to return to Earth on Sunday. The first manned flight around the moon (“Artemis 2”) will be followed by another manned flight, including landing on the moon (“Artemis 3”).

Private companies have also wanted to land on the moon for years. For this purpose, the US technology giant Google advertised the “Google Lunar X” award to the first non-governmental team to set foot on the moon in 2007. The “Hakuto” ​​team was also involved. But by the end of the 2018 deadline, no one hit the target.

The Japanese then made a new attempt, a “reboot” with the “Hakuto-R”. If the M1 missions are successful, it will be the first time in the world that a private company will set foot on the moon with ispace. However, the competition is already in the starting blocks: US companies Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines are planning a more direct route to the moon with their lander, and therefore they can get ahead of the “Hakuto-R”. But Takeshi Hakamada, founder and boss of ispace, sees this calmly: “We don’t care who lands first,” he told science magazine New Scientist. “Our vision is to create an economically viable lunar ecosystem.”

Ispace initially plans to launch another lunar lander with its own rover in 2024, and a large lander in 2025. One of the company’s goals is to transport goods to the surface of the moon. But Hakamada has another vision for 2040: a small town on the moon called “Moon Valley” with 1,000 residents, including infrastructure and industry, as shown in a video on the company’s website. According to the Japanese vision, the city on the Moon will attract about 10,000 visitors each year.

(SDA)