A Japanese company is pushing ahead with plans to launch a private moon lander by the end of 2022, a year packed with other moonshot ambitions and rehearsals that could foretell how soon humans get back to the lunar surface.
If the plans hold, the company, ispace, which is based in Tokyo, would accomplish the first intact landing by a Japanese vehicle on the moon. The United States and Russia have already begun exploring the moon this year.
The NASA Artemis-1 mission is a crucial uncrewed test of the American hardware that is to carry astronauts back to the moon. South Korea could launch its first moon vehicle later this year.
Other countries have fallen behind in their plans to go to the moon. India was going to make another moon landing attempt. K. Sivan, who finished his term as the chairman of the country's space agency this month, said that the Chandrayaan 3 mission was delayed to mid-2023 Russia is confident that its Luna-25 lander will lift off this summer.
The size of a small hot tub is what the M1 moon lander is. It is in the final stages of assembly at the facilities of Ariane Group, the company that built the rocket that launched the James Webb Space Telescope.
M1 will be sent to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a launch if structural tests go as planned in April.
The specific launch date is scheduled to be at the end of 2022, according to the founder and chief executive of the company.
Three to four months after the moon landing, the mission uses a lengthy lunar trajectory to save fuel and maximize the amount of cargo the M1 lander can carry.
The ispace team was a finalist in the Google Lunar X Prize several years ago, but there were no winners of the $20 million prize. Although it did not win the prize, the company raised over $90 million in the last year and sees a healthy business in the future carrying payloads to the moon.
More than 10 moon landings in the coming years, among a rush of space firms that envision mining the moon with robots for precious resources like iron and Silicon that could be returned to Earth or used to expand structures on the lunar surface, is its ambitious timeline.
Japan's space agency, JAXA, is trying to test out a small rover that can change shapes for different terrain, as well as the space program of the United Arab Emirates, which is sending its first moon landing.
The moon has been eyed by nations and private companies in recent years for its potential to serve as a staging ground for future missions to Mars. The Artemis program is leaning on private companies to cut the cost of getting to the moon in order to create a market for lunar services.
The company's next mission, M2, will carry a micro rover that is built to drive around the surface and is meant to demonstrate operations on the moon. The mission was delayed because of engineering schedule changes and to accommodate customers, according to Hideki Shimomura, ispace's chief technology officer.
Two American companies are trying to get to the moon before the end of the year. Both firms are building their spaceships with the help of the Commercial lunar payload services, a NASA program that aims to help fund development of privately owned landers capable of sending research instruments to the lunar surface.
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