A private Japanese moon landing has opened eyes to deep space.
The Hakuto-R lander has taken its first photos since launching atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Sunday morning (Dec. 11), announced representatives from ispace, the Tokyo-based company that operates the spacecraft, early Tuesday morning (December 13). .
“While initial control operations continue at ispace’s Mission Control Center (MCC), we have also received the first images taken by our lander-mounted camera! This is an image of Earth about 19 hours after separation from the launch vehicle,” ispace said. via Twitter (opens in a new tab).
“What looks like a crescent moon here is actually Earth. In the lower right, you can see a plaque showing our Hakuto-R corporate partners (as of March 2022),” the company added in another tweet (opens in a new tab) .
Lunar Timeline: Mankind’s Exploration of the Moon
While initial control operations continue at ispace’s Mission Control Center (MCC), we’ve also received the first images taken by our lander-mounted camera! This is an image of Earth about 19 hours after separation from the launch vehicle. pic.twitter.com/BcM6mrw1Qb December 13, 2022
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If all goes according to plan, Hakuto-R will reach the Moon in April, making the first soft lunar landing for a Japanese spacecraft. The lander will then deploy a small rover named Rashid for the United Arab Emirates space agency.
But ispace isn’t looking that far ahead yet. This is a test flight, ispace’s first mission, and the company is taking things slowly. The mission team is ticking the boxes one by one, and so far, Hakuto-R is hitting its marks.
So far, the team has established communications with the lander and gotten it into a stable orientation with a consistent power source. Team members also have “confirmation that there were no deficiencies in the lander’s core systems,” ispace wrote in an update Monday (opens in a new tab) (Dec. 12).
Artist’s impression of ispace’s Hakuto-R landing on the Moon. The spacecraft is expected to touch down on Earth’s natural satellite in April 2023. (Image credit: ispace)
Hakuto-R’s journey will set the stage for many more missions to come, if all goes according to ispace’s plan. The company plans to launch its second mission to the lunar surface in 2024 and its third, a flight for NASA’s commercial lunar payload services program, a year later.
After that, ispace aims for two lunar missions a year, company founder and CEO Takeshi Hakamada recently told Space.com.
“Our vision is to establish an economically viable and sustainable cislunar ecosystem [space]” said Hakamada.
Hakuto-R didn’t travel into space alone on Sunday. Falcon 9 also launched Lunar Flashlight, a briefcase-sized NASA spacecraft that will search for water ice from orbit around the Moon.
Mike Wall is the author of “Over there (opens in new tab)” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in a new tab). follow us on twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in a new tab) or enabled Facebook (opens in a new tab).