Japanese moon firm ispace launching cargo mission in November

Japanese lunar exploration firm ispace introduced plans on Wednesday to launch its first cargo mission subsequent month, racing to be the primary of a number of non-public ventures to ship payloads to the moon’s floor.

The non-public firm goals to launch its “Mission 1” lunar lander throughout a window between Nov. 9 and Nov. 15, driving on one in all SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Mission 1 will carry a wide range of payloads for each firms and governments, together with a pair of rovers. The corporate accomplished testing of its spacecraft in September, and is about to move the lander to Florida.

Alongside ispace within the burgeoning lunar cargo market are the likes of U.S. firms Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines, each of which plan to launch missions to the moon’s floor subsequent yr.

Born out of Google’s Lunar XPRIZE competitors final decade, ispace goals to supply all kinds of lunar-focused providers, starting from transportation of cargo to promoting knowledge to area companies.

It now has greater than 200 workers throughout its workplaces in Japan, Luxembourg and the U.S. So far ispace has raised greater than $200 million in funding.