Micro Rover “TENACIOUS” Integrated into Lander, New Payload Customer Announced
To mark Japan’s national Space Day, ispace, inc. (ispace) (TOKYO: 9348), a global lunar exploration company, announced today that its Mission 2, featuring the RESILIENCE lunar lander and TENACIOUS micro rover, is now planned to launch no earlier than December 2024.
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An image of ispace’s RESILIENCE lunar lander at a JAXA facility in Tsukuba, Japan. (Photo: Business Wire)
At the press conference, held at the Tsukuba Research Support Center in Tsukuba City, Ibaraki, Japan, ispace released multiple updates on the progress of the RESILIENCE lunar lander as well as Mission 2.
“I am very happy to announce that the RESILIENCE lander assembly and integration is complete, and we are on schedule for our planned launch no earlier than this December, the landing site has been decided, and preparations for Mission 2 are progressing steadily,” said Takeshi Hakamada, Founder & CEO of ispace. “As we have said all along, Mission 2 development and mission planning are being determined based on feedback from the lessons learned during Mission 1. We are encouraged by the support from our stakeholders, and the entire team is working towards the success of the mission. Never Quit the Lunar Quest.”
RESILIENCE Lunar Lander Development Progress
Testing of the structure thermal model of the RESILIENCE lunar lander began in 2023, at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)’s Tsukuba Space Center. Since May 2024, various tests of the RESILIENCE flight model have been conducted and successfully completed.
In August 2024, the TENACIOUS micro rover, which was developed and assembled by ispace EUROPE S.A., ispace’s European subsidiary, was shipped from Luxembourg to Japan and integrated into the lander’s payload bay.
RESILIENCE, having completed nearly all testing, will be prepared for shipping in the coming weeks to Cape Canaveral, Fla., from where it will be launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
Mission 2 Landing site
In addition to RESILIENCE lander progress updates, ispace announced its primary landing site for Mission 2 will be near the center of Mare Frigoris (Sea of Cold), 60.5 degrees north latitude and 4.6 degrees west longitude, an expansive basaltic plain situated in the Moon’s northern hemisphere.
The primary landing site was chosen along with multiple contingencies to ensure operational flexibility while maintaining scientific and logistical continuity. The site meets the technical specifications of the RESILIENCE lander as well as exploration objectives for the TENACIOUS micro rover, in addition to mission requirements of other payload customers. Careful consideration of the target site criteria included continuous sun-illumination duration and communication visibility from the Earth. A projected landing date has not yet been announced.
“Now thinking back on Mission 1, to the message ‘Just Landed in our Hearts’ that one of our engineers had given me after our first landing attempt on April 26, 2023, and with the thoughts of all of you who are counting on us, we confidently look forward to the launch of Mission 2,” said Ryo Ujiie, CTO of ispace. “This is the next step for ispace and the RESILIENCE lander, leading to our second attempt to land on the Moon and explore beyond.”
Final Payload Manifest
Today, ispace announced its final payload customer for Mission 2, from artist Mikael Genberg, a small red house framed in Swedish-style white known as the “Moonhouse,” which will travel to the Moon. The Moonhouse is an artistic and epic story that Mikael has envisioned for 25 years. The story of the Moonhouse, a small red house on the surface of the Moon, will finally come to fruition with ispace leading to an iconic artwork filled with new possibilities and new ideas.
The Moonhouse is expected, after space travel in the payload bay of the RESILIENCE lander, secured in the front of the TENACIOUS rover, to be deployed on the Moon's surface.
“The Moonhouse is a fantastic project, and we are incredibly pleased to be part of finally realizing it. The vision of the artwork merges with our own; to expand our planet and future, and to extend the sphere of human life into space,” said Julien-Alexandre Lamamy, CEO of ispace-EUROPE.
In addition to Moonhouse, the following five payloads have been integrated and are prepared for the launch of Mission 2:
- Water electrolyzer equipment from Takasago Thermal Engineering Co., a HAKUTO-R corporate partner
- A self-contained module for food production experiments from Euglena Co.
- A deep space radiation probe developed by the Department of Space Science and Engineering, National Central University, Taiwan
- A commemorative alloy plate modeled after “Charter of the Universal Century” and developed by Bandai Namco Research Institute, Inc.
- ispace’s TENACIOUS micro rover developed by ispace-EUROPE
Supporting Company Updates
As of September 2024, Tokyo Keiki Corporation, a manufacturer of cutting-edge infrastructure measurement, cognition, and control devices, has joined the HAKUTO-R program as a supporting company. Tokyo Keiki Corporation identified the space sector as a growth drivers of its long-term vision “TOKYO KEIKI Vision 2030” and intends to expand its business offerings. The two companies will collaborate on research and development of space equipment to contribute to the realization of a lunar economy.
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About ispace
ispace, a global lunar resource development company with the vision, “Expand our planet. Expand our future.”, specializes in designing and building lunar landers and rovers. ispace aims to extend the sphere of human life into space and create a sustainable world by providing high-frequency, low-cost transportation services to the Moon. The company has business entities in Japan, Luxembourg, and the United States with approximately 300 employees worldwide. For more information, visit: www.ispace-inc.com and follow us on X: @ispace_inc.
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