The first private mission to the lunar surface, which Japan is responsible for, will launch on Wednesday and will serve as a series of experiments, the European Space Agency (ESA), a partner organization, said on Tuesday.
The launch of Japan’s iSpace’s Hakuto-R 1 mission is scheduled for 8:39 AM (Lisbon time) from Florida, USA aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.
ESA will be responsible for communication between the iSpace lander (equipped with various instruments) and the company’s technical teams on Earth throughout the mission, which will last three to five months.
In Tokyo, Japan, the mission control center will monitor and send instructions to the lunar module, as well as receive scientific data collected from experiments being conducted on the lunar surface.
Founded in 2010, iSpace specializes in building landers and robots and offers low-cost and frequent services to transport cargo to the Moon.
The Japanese company’s U.S. subsidiary is part of a consortium that has signed a contract with the North American Space Agency (NASA) to land payloads through 2025.
The Luxembourg branch was selected by ESA to participate in a program aimed at extracting water from the moon (the south pole is rich in ice).
The surface of the moon has already been visited by robots, probes and astronauts as part of the missions of state space agencies.
Only North American astronauts were on lunar soil between 1969 and 1972. The United States wants to return to the lunar surface in 2025 with the first woman and the first black man.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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