Ispace: A New Attempt After a Failure to Explore the Moon

Japanese aerospace startup ispace has announced the relaunch of its ambitions to reach the Moon with an unmanned mission scheduled for January 15, 2025. The announcement comes after a failed attempt in April 2023, when the company's first vehicle suffered a "hard landing." Although it failed to become the first private company to place a module on the Moon, ispace wants to consolidate its position in a highly competitive field, where private companies and government agencies are exploring opportunities for space exploration and exploration.

• Lessons from Failure and Plans for Success

ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada stressed that the failure of Mission 1 provided valuable lessons: "It's important to regroup after a failure and learn from mistakes. We will make Mission 2 a success." The new lunar module, called Resilience, will be launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. If the mission is successful, Resilience will release several mini-robots developed by ispace's commercial partners.

• Background of the international competition

Five countries (the United States, the former Soviet Union, China, India and Japan) have so far succeeded in placing spacecraft on the Moon through slow, controlled descents.

Other private companies, such as Intuitive Machines of the United States, have carried out missions, marking the beginning of intense competition in the private sector of lunar exploration. The Resilience mission will compete directly with the Blue Ghost module, developed by the American company Firefly Aerospace, which has a journey of 45 days to the moon.

• Japan's growing interest in space

In addition to ispace, other Japanese companies have consolidated their positions in the space industry:

Space One, which is trying to become the first private Japanese company to put a satellite into orbit; Interstellar Technologies, backed by a recent 7 billion yen (43 million euros) investment from Toyota, is developing rockets for commercial launches.

According to Interstellar Technologies, small satellite launches increased 20-fold between 2016 and 2023, reaching 2,860 launches in 2023. The growth is driven by: The development of private space companies; National security needs; Technological advances.

• Market leaders

The American company SpaceX, owned by Elon Musk, continues to dominate the commercial launch market, setting high standards for the accessibility and frequency of space missions. In this context, ispace hopes that the Resilience mission will mark a new chapter in private space exploration, putting Japan on the map as a leader in the field.