A rocket carrying two lunar landers, one from Japan’s ispace, was launched from the US on January 15, marking the Japanese startup’s second attempt to land on the moon and become the first Asian private company to do so.
The rocket, from Elon Musk’s SpaceX, was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in the southern state of Florida. About an hour and a half after launch, ispace’s lunar lander separated from the rocket and began its journey toward the moon.
“This is a big step toward building a system capable of transporting items to the moon two to three times a year in the future,” ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada told reporters in Tokyo on January 15.
Ispace’s first attempt to be the first private company to land on the moon took off in 2022, but the project ended in failure just before landing in April 2023 due to an altitude miscalculation.
In February 2024, US startup Intuitive Machines successfully landed on the lunar surface, claiming the title of world’s first private company on the moon, but ispace still hopes to become the first Asian private company to accomplish that with a successful landing in May or June.
In addition to the company’s own lunar rover, the lander will carry other cargo including a water electrolysis device from Takasago Thermal Engineering, an algae cultivation device from biotech company Euglena and a radiation dosimeter from Taiwan’s National Central University.
The rover will collect regolith and sell rights to it to the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), likely marking the world’s first international commercial transaction of lunar resources.
This launch is a symbol of private-sector-led lunar development in both Japan and the US. The SpaceX rocket was also equipped with a lander developed by US startup Firefly Aerospace, in an event said to be the first launch of two private company landers on one rocket.
Firefly is transporting experimental NASA equipment to the lunar surface, aiming for a March landing.
NASA is turning to private-sector-led space development, eyeing the superior technology, low costs, and speed that companies can provide. The Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, in which NASA works with private companies to send materials to the moon, supported Intuitive and Firefly from the development stage.
NASA also helped develop SpaceX into a major player in space launches through a program that outsources the transportation of materials to the International Space Station to private companies. Though SpaceX raised some funds on its own, nearly half is said to have come from NASA.
International competition over lunar development is intensifying. Public and private exploration is exploding due to the possibility that resources like water and minerals can be found on the moon and used. The lunar business market is expected to reach a cumulative total of USD 170 billion between 2020 and 2040, according to consulting firm PwC.
The US is particularly wary of China, whose space development is state-led and has been steadily achieving results. In June 2024, a Chinese probe brought back samples collected from the far side of the moon, a world first. The US is looking to spur private-sector-led space development as a countermeasure.
This tactic is likely to be further advanced by the administration of incoming US President Donald Trump. NASA’s Artemis lunar exploration program, which involves various countries and private companies, was originally formulated during Trump’s first term.
Japan is following a similar playbook to the US. The government is promoting a small and medium enterprise innovation program to implement advanced technologies owned by space startups in society. In July 2024, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) established a space strategy fund to provide JPY 1 trillion (USD 6.4 billion) of private sector support over ten years.
JAXA’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) probe successfully landed on the moon in January 2024, making Japan the fifth country to reach earth’s natural satellite. JAXA is currently working to provide ispace with high-precision landing technology.
The US has also positioned ispace as a key company in the Artemis program. The January 15 launch involved indirect cooperation between ispace and NASA.
Japan aims to grow its space business to a market size of JPY 8 trillion (USD 51.2 billion) in the 2030s, double the size of 2020. A successful landing by ispace could provide a boost to Japan’s private-sector-led space development.
Speaking after the separation, ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada praised the company’s determination to try again after 2023’s failure.
“A moon landing is not a dream but it has become a reality … and a success would be a huge, huge step forward for ispace,” he told reporters.
Intuitive Machines’ 2024 moon landing, albeit lopsided and partially unsuccessful, marked the first private company and the first CLPS mission to touch down on the moon. An earlier attempt by CLPS member Astrobotic’s lander failed shortly after launch.
Countries and private companies worldwide have been focused on the moon in recent years for its potential to host astronaut bases and hold resources that could be mined for in-space applications, making Earth’s natural satellite a stage for national prestige and geopolitical competition akin to the Cold War-era space race.
Resilience is carrying USD 16 million worth of customer missions and six payloads in total, including an in-house “micro rover” that will deploy from the lander and collect lunar samples, said ispace executive business director Jumpei Nozaki in an interview.
Resilience is expected to touch down on the moon’s surface in May or June. It will take an energy-efficient path relying heavily on the Earth and moon’s gravity in a winding series of flybys to steer its trajectory, similar to the Japanese space agency’s SLIM which succeeded in the country’s first lunar landing in 2024.
Firefly’s Blue Ghost aims to reach the moon 45 days after launch, around March 2. The lander is carrying 10 payloads from a variety of NASA-funded customers and one from Blue Origin-owned Honeybee Robotics.
Both landers’ missions will last a full lunar day, or roughly two weeks. They will not survive the frigid lunar nighttime where temperatures can plunge to roughly minus 128 degrees Celsius.
NASA with its Artemis program aims to return humans to the moon by 2027—but likely later—for the first time since 1972, while China plans to put its own crews on the lunar surface by 2030 following a series of robotic missions.
CLPS missions like Firefly’s Blue Ghost, privately owned but substantially funded by NASA, are meant to study the moon’s surface and stimulate private lunar demand before NASA sends humans there using SpaceX’s Starship and later Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander.
But the US space agency faces potential changes to its Artemis program with the incoming administration of Donald Trump, who has largely sided with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s vision to focus heavily on Mars.
“We’ve invested in going to the moon and I think everybody wants us to go back to the moon,” Nicky Fox, head of NASA’s science mission directorate who oversees CLPS, told Reuters on January 14 when asked about potential changes to the moon program.
“The great thing about NASA science—we do amazing science wherever we go,” she said.
This article first appeared on Nikkei Asia. It has been republished here as part of 36Kr’s ongoing partnership with Nikkei.