Japanese space venture firm announces plan to put lander on moon by end of 2020

Tokyo-based space venture company ispace has announced a plan to put its own lander on the moon by around the end of 2020 to search for water and other resources.

Moon landings have been carried out in the past by the United States, the former Soviet Union and China. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) plans to launch its SLIM moon investigation lander around fiscal 2020, but it is possible that the ispace craft could get to the moon first.

A total of about 10.1 billion yen from 11 bodies including the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ) and the Development Bank of Japan is being invested in the ispace project. This is said to be the largest ever investment in a venture company in Japan at the technological development stage.

Under the project, at around the end of 2019, the company will send a lander measuring about 2 meters tall that can carry items weighing a total of 30 kilograms into orbit around the moon. Then, at around the end of 2020, it will put another lander on the moon, which will deploy a small rover to travel on the surface.

The moon is believed to have a large amount of water, and it is hoped that this could be used to produce oxygen and hydrogen fuel through electrolysis.

"In 40 years we will see an age in which 1,000 people are living on the moon, and in which 10,000 people visit every year. To achieve that it is important to first develop resources on the moon," ispace representative Takeshi Hakamada told a news conference.

The company is also participating in the international Google Lunar XPRIZE project, in which privately funded companies are competing to successfully place a probe on the moon's surface. For the XPRIZE mission, ispace plans to have an exploration vehicle travel on the moon's surface by the end of March 2018, but will use an Indian rocket and landing craft for this.