SpaceX successfully launches Ispace’s Hakuto-R private mission to Moon
Hakuto-R’s planned landing site is in Atlas Crater.
Using its Falcon 9 rocket, SpaceX tonight successfully launched Ispace’s Hakuto-R lunar lander, the first private mission attempting to softly land on the Moon.
The Falcon 9 first stage completed its fifth flight, landing successfully at Cape Canaveral.
Hakuto-R, which is actually the first of two missions, carries seven payloads, including two small rovers, Rashid, which is the United Arab Emirates first lunar mission, and a smaller rover built by Ispace. Both will operate for about a week, one lunar day. Hakuto-R will land on the Moon in April, 2023.
A second payload is a cubesat from JPL, called Lunar Flashlight. It will go into lunar orbit, testing new fuel technologies while also attempting to identify water in the permanently shadowed craters at the lunar south pole.
The leaders in the 2022 launch race:
57 China
56 SpaceX
21 Russia
9 Rocket Lab
8 ULA
The U.S. now leads China 80 to 57 in the national rankings, but trails the entire world combined 87 to 80.
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In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
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Hakuto-R’s planned landing site is in Atlas Crater.
Using its Falcon 9 rocket, SpaceX tonight successfully launched Ispace’s Hakuto-R lunar lander, the first private mission attempting to softly land on the Moon.
The Falcon 9 first stage completed its fifth flight, landing successfully at Cape Canaveral.
Hakuto-R, which is actually the first of two missions, carries seven payloads, including two small rovers, Rashid, which is the United Arab Emirates first lunar mission, and a smaller rover built by Ispace. Both will operate for about a week, one lunar day. Hakuto-R will land on the Moon in April, 2023.
A second payload is a cubesat from JPL, called Lunar Flashlight. It will go into lunar orbit, testing new fuel technologies while also attempting to identify water in the permanently shadowed craters at the lunar south pole.
The leaders in the 2022 launch race:
57 China
56 SpaceX
21 Russia
9 Rocket Lab
8 ULA
The U.S. now leads China 80 to 57 in the national rankings, but trails the entire world combined 87 to 80.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Speaking of going back to the moon…
Check out https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-11508029/The-moon-looked-50-years-ago-newly-remastered-images.html
— and what might be the ultimate Christmas gift for anyone whose interest lies along these lines.
50 years on and 400 (out of 35,000) images. Thank you, Mr. Saunders. and all of the people who made this possible.
“Both will operate for about a week, one lunar day.”
A Lunar day is the same length as a Lunar month, roughly 28 Earth days or four Earth weeks. If one uses “Lunar day” to mean sunrise to sunset as is often done, that is still two weeks, not one. It may well be that the rovers will operate during the peak sunlit hours of a Lunar day, which might be considered about a week.
Perhaps “Both will operate for about a week, the most brightly illuminated portion of one lunar day.”?
Milt-
good stuff!
How are we doing on total launches for the year, compared to history? 167 is pretty high, right?
Geoff,
The fourth figure of this annual report should answer your question (successful orbital launches worldwide, 1957 to 2021):
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/essays-and-commentaries/2021-the-year-that-private-enterprise-took-over-rocketry/
Ray Van Dune: Yes, both will work during the warmest week of the daylight part of the lunar day.
I have heard of recent statements by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson that SpaceX intends to land a crew on the Moon in late 2024. I have also heard such statements from Elon Musk, who admitted that they were “aspirational”.
Bill Nelson’s statement seems to tacitly acknowledge that Artemis cannot take us back to the Moon until late in this decade, even with SpaceX landing technology, and so any landing earlier is going to be an all-SpaceX show. Probably no Lunar Gateway, or what pieces are available lofted by Falcon Heavy.
This is great news if true, because I fear the Chinese putting together a crash program to beat the US back to the Moon, using Apollo-vintage technology to just get a set of boots on the ground, akin to the final Soviet plans using N-1.
“the first private mission attempting to softly land on the Moon.”
The first that tried it was SpaceIL from Israel in 2019. They crashed. But that wasn’t intentional.
Has Elon Musk’s focus on Twitter caused him to neglect SpaceX?