Hundreds of spectators at a viewing party in Tokyo were in an uproar in celebration of a Japanese company’s moon spacecraft launch on Sunday, Dec. 11.
After a few delays, space Inc’s HAKUTO-R mission successfully blasted off to the moon from Cape Canaveral without a single slip-up. This is the first time a Japanese private company has reached such a milestone. The launch was even a first for Japan.
The launch was quite a sight for hundreds of Japanese who streamed the event, cheering their lungs out when the rocket fired and lit up the dark Florida skies.
A Historic Launch
The mission took off smoothly even after two postponements caused by the inspections of its SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
According to Reuters, the mission’s success is huge for both Japan and the commercial sector. The report tells us that the national space agencies of the United States, Russia, and China have conducted soft landings on Earth’s nearest neighbor in the past half century, but no companies have.
The same report tells us that the Tokyo company’s success means a massive milestone in US-Japan space cooperation. This is especially critical when China is increasingly keeping up with space launches with its reignited interest in space exploration.
It is also worth noting that countries can no longer access Russian rockets because of the conflict currently enveloping the region.
According to ABCNews, the Tokyo company aimed for the moon with its private lander blasting off atop a SpaceX rocket, the United Arab Emirates’ first lunar rover, and a toylike Japanese robot designed to roll around in the lunar landscape.
As per reports, the lander’s journey to the moon with its experiments will take close to five months.
For financial reasons and to provide more space for cargo, the company ispace designed its craft to use little fuel.
This means the mission will take a slow, low-energy path to the moon. To do this maneuver, the lander must fly 1 million miles from Earth before looping back and intersecting with the moon by the end of April.
The name HAKUTO refers to the white rabbit that lives on the moon in Japanese folklore. The project was a finalist in the Google Lunar XPRIZE before being revitalized as a commercial venture.
It has been 4 hours since the mission took off.
More Space Events
But the HAKUTO-R mission is not Japan’s last big space event. On Friday, Dec. 9, billionaire Yusaku Maezawa revealed the eight crew members he wishes to take on a SpaceX flyby of the moon as soon as next year.
One is Choi Seung Hyun, known as TOP from the K-pop band BIGBANG. Other well-known crew members are DJ Steve Aoki and Tim Dodd.
Maezawa announced that he wanted to bring artists with him on the trip to encourage them to produce something that would promote world peace.
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