SpaceX F9 - HAKUTO-R Mission 1 - SLC-40

Launch Date: December 11
Launch Window: 2:38am EST (11:38pm PST on the 10th, 07:38 UTC)
Launch site: SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS), Florida
Core Booster Recovery: RTLS - LZ-2
Booster: B1073.5
Fairings: Reused - 4th and 5th
Mass: 340 kg plus a bunch of cubesats
Orbit: TLI
Yearly Launch Number: 56th

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the first commercial lunar lander for ispace, a Japan-based company that competed for the Google Lunar XPRIZE and is now developing a series of robotic lunar landers. The first lunar lander, called ispace Mission 1, was assembled in partnership with ArianeGroup and carries a package of international and commercial payloads, including two small lunar rovers from the United Arab Emirates and Japan. The mission will target a landing in the Lacus Somniorum region of the moon. NASA’s Lunar Flashlight CubeSat will be a rideshare payload on this launch.

Hakuto - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[ecarfan]

Yes, it’s tiny. Here is an image from the ispace website, which seems to show four wheels, not two.

 

[ecarfan]

This CNN article about the rover shows a photo (below) of a 4 wheel rover that is stated to be 10kg and looks to be about 0.5m long. Obviously not 8cm.

I think the “Transformable Lunar Robot” is a different piece of equipment.

 

[HVM]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1602021574072492032

 

[scaesare]

HAKUTO-R is a very interesting mission but I can’t seem to find many technical details about the spacecraft propulsion system. The ispace website doesn’t have anything on that topic that I can find. What kind of engines? What are the propellants?

I would also like to know some details about the “Transformable Lunar Robot” excursion vehicle, a rather crazy name.. The Everyday Astronaut web page about the mission states:


The NASA web page about the mission states:

I find that description confusing. A single axle vehicle?

Interesting... it desscribes it as a:

a cylindrical shape, basically an axle with two hemispherical wheels

So, axle running length of cylinder, and centered within it, with a wheel of larger diameter at each end?

 

[ecarfan]

So, axle running length of cylinder, and centered within it, with a wheel of larger diameter at each end?

That would need a gyroscope inside it to stay upright, like a Segway scooter.

Which seems like a strange way to design a 0.25kg lunar rover that is 8cm in diameter.

As I posted upthread:

The NASA web page about the mission states:

The Japanese Lunar Excursion Vehicle, or Transformable Lunar Robot, is a small 8 cm diameter sphere with a mass of about 0.25 kg that will open into a cylindrical shape, basically an axle with two hemispherical wheels, and carry cameras for surface observations.

I wonder if that description is incorrect.

 

[scaesare]

That would need a gyroscope inside it to stay upright, like a Segway scooter.

Which seems like a strange way to design a 0.25kg lunar rover that is 8cm in diameter.

As I posted upthread:


I wonder if that description is incorrect.

Unless it's bottom-weighted. Still would rock a bit when starting/stopping, but would settle down for stuff like video...

 

[bxr140]

It’s likely just balanced. Cant put a lot of parts in .25kg. Video could be one frame per rotation.

 

[scaesare]

It’s likely just balanced. Cant put a lot of parts in .25kg. Video could be one frame per rotation.

Yeah true, not a lot ow mass budget there.

But if it were balanced wouldn't that imply it could stop at any arbitrary rotational position? That would require it to be moving for any video, and even then if it were well balanced, there's no guarantee it would rotate...

 

[ecarfan]

Landing attempt coming up! Livestream starts in about 21 hours. Eric Berger has a new article about it.

Link to the livestream

I’m looking forward to watching a moon landing in near real time!

 

[MyJoule]

10 min post landing and no data yet- Not sounding like a success, Hope I'm wrong

 

[ecarfan]

This doesn’t seem good…

 

[ecarfan]

Now they are saying that they lost communication during landing and are assuming the landing was not a success.

 

[Electroman]

They are saying landing failed.

Instead of celebrating all the success they had, all I see is sad long depressed faces. I think it is the culture that considers anything less than 100% success as a failure.

 

[bxr140]

Instead of celebrating all the success they had, all I see is sad long depressed faces. I think it is the culture that considers anything less than 100% success as a failure.

It’s not a company/cultural thing.

Not landing on the moon when you’re trying to land on the moon is a pretty big failure. Anyone going through that would be long in the face.

 

[ecarfan]

For this kind of mission, where all the objectives require a successful landing, I think a failed landing means the mission is a failure.

If they can figure out what caused the failure, and then do another mission that results in a successful landing, then something would have been learned.

 

[Watts_Up]

If they can figure out what caused the failure, and then do another mission that results in a successful landing, then something would have been learned.

There was some incredible landing images which stopped few minutes before the expected landing simulation time.
It seems that the sattelite landed too fast?

I was surprise that there was no realtime trajectory display like in the case of the last Indian attempt landing.
I wonder what all the crew members were looking on their screens?

Without considering the added complexity and cost, having a separate module orbiting, like in the case of the Apollo missions,
would have provided a way to capture extra descending information and the exact location of the landing.

 

[ICUDoc]

Hoping for a Phoenix event.....

 

[MyJoule]

Kinda sounds like it ran out of propellent

Status Update on ispace HAKUTO-R Mission 1 Lunar Lander | ispace

Ispace is a private lunar robotic exploration company that is developing micro-robotic technology to provide a low-cost and frequent transportation service to and on the Moon, conduct lunar surface exploration to map, process and deliver resources to our customers in cislunar space.

ispace-inc.com

 

[Grendal]

First ispace lunar lander feared lost

Controllers lost contact with a lunar lander developed by a Japanese company moments before its scheduled touchdown, raising fears the spacecraft crashed.

spacenews.com

 

[ecarfan]

Reuters: Japan's ispace says moon lander unexpectedly accelerated and likely crashed

ispace said it was possible that as the lander approached the moon, its altitude measurement system had miscalculated the distance to the surface.

"It apparently went into a free-fall towards the surface as it was running out of fuel to fire up its thrusters," Chief Technology Officer Ryo Ujiie told a news conference on Wednesday.