Japan’s ispace Readying for Moon Landing After Missing by 5 Kilometers in 2022

Moonshots are not horseshoes, so close doesn’t count.

A Tokyo-based firm that came within 5 kilometers of being the first private company to land a probe on the moon, only to crash on the cusp of triumph, plans to launch a second attempt later this year with a new record in mind.

Moon-as-a-Service

After its Mission 1 lunar probe, launched in December 2022, ran out of fuel and crashed, Japanese lunar transportation startup ispace lost the chance to be the first private firm to touch down on Earth’s only natural satellite. A US firm, Intuitive Machines, landed a probe in February 2024. 

But the Tokyo-based company is giving it another (moon)shot. For Mission 2, scheduled to launch as early as December, the company told Nikkei it found and fixed software problems, and still plans to achieve a first:

• ispace’s Mission 2 probe vehicle, nicknamed Tenacious, will take pictures and collect samples of lunar regolith, the unconsolidated material on the moon’s surface that, along with rock chips and volcanic glass, contains a special component called “agglutinates” — basically mineral fragments held together with glass, found only on the moon.
• ispace signed a contract to sell the regolith to NASA. If the transaction goes through, it will be the first-ever commercial transaction of lunar resources.

Fly Me to the Moon (I’ll Pay You): In 2021, PwC analysts estimated the “lunar market” could be worth nearly $170 billion by 2040. They noted transporting people and resources to and from the moon’s surface, mining and infrastructure projects, and the sale or use of data gathered on the moon as three potential business lines. Two of those business lines, transportation and data, are already in ispace’s business plan, but it has a third that might draw curious eyeballs: putting sponsor logos on its lunar vehicles.