The moon is quite the place to happen these days. This week, a Private company is making a moon landing. If successful, Tuesday’s landing will also mark the first time Japan has set foot on the moon and the first time an Arab country has explored the lunar surface.
In case you lost it:
Hakuto-R relaunched on December 11, 2022. It spent the last 135 days en route to the moon and reached orbit earlier this month. On board were two small autonomous vehicles, one of which was a 22-pound self-propelled vehicle sent by the United Arab Emirates. The other rover is a product of a Japanese toy company. If successful, Japan will join the US, China, and the Soviet Union in the exclusive club of nations landed spacecraft on the moon.
Landing is currently en route to landing at 12:40 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Watch the livestream starting at 11am right here:
As the lander gets closer, managing lunar energy becomes more challenges for the ground crew, based on Sasha Ivan Hurovitz: Aerospace avionics system engineer:
As our M1 lander approached the Moon’s surface, the Moon took up more of the lander’s view. This causes the Sun to remain obscured for longer periods of time, posing challenges for energy management and power generation. Through careful testing and analysis, the ispace engineering team prepared for this and successfully led the lander through the longest eclipse period.
However, it’s not just energy management that poses a threat to the mission. This is not the first time a private company has attempted to land on the moon. EQUAL Evil behavior note, an Israeli company made an attempt in 2019, but the ship landed. It seems rocket science, is not easy. From Evil behavior:
It is very difficult to achieve a “soft landing”—as opposed to a hard landing—on any extraterrestrial surface. Many missions to the lunar surface have failed over the decades, including recent examples such as India’s Vikram, a lander that also crashed into the Moon in 2019, and Japan’s OMOTENASHI, a spacecraft The lander suffered communication failure after its November 2022 launch. One exception is China’s ongoing Chang’e series of Moon landers, all of which have so far successfully landed on the surface. moon.
Some space companies believe there is a future market for lunar exploration, which could include resource exploration and space tourism. Finally, a series of new commercial missions will attempt to land on the Moon in the coming years. For example, Astrobotic Technology and Intuitive Machines, both US companies, are currently on track to land spacecraft on the Moon in 2023 as part of the Commercial Moon Payload Services program (CLPS) of NASA.
Of course, Japan and the United Arab Emirates aren’t the only countries getting close and cozy with our largest natural satellite. by NASA Artemis 1 lunar mission was a great success once it actually aired. Next year, humans will return to lunar orbit for the first time in more than 50 years with Artemis 2 . questwith shoes in the dust scheduled for some time in 2025.
