January 5th, 2023 |
N E W Y O R K – December 12, 2022 – The Beyond Earth Institute (Beyond Earth), a space policy think tank focused on human spaceflight, congratulates the Japanese space company ispace on the successful launch of its Hakuto-R moon lander. The ispace lunar mission was launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 at 2:38 am Eastern Time yesterday morning. If successful, Hakuto-R will be the first privately-developed spacecraft to accomplish a soft landing on the lunar surface.
Beyond Earth President Steve Wolfe was ecstatic about the successful launch and said, “ispace is at the vanguard of what will be many commercial missions to the Moon ushering in the next era of commercial space—the Cislunar economy. We wish ispace all success for this and future missions.”
Courtney Stadd, Vice President of Beyond Earth, concurred and said, “In the wake of the successful Artemis mission, this mission by iSpace – to be followed so by other commercial ventures, as well as government agencies – is laying the groundwork for long-term permanent habitation of the Moon. As the presentations and policy recommendations at our recent Space Symposium underscored, we are at the very beginning of a new era in space exploration – Beyond Earth human migration.”
Established in 2010, ispace operated “HAKUTO,” one of five finalist teams in the Google Lunar XPRIZE race. ispace has also launched a lunar data business concept to support new customers as a gateway to conduct business on the Moon.
Beyond Earth will follow the Hakuto-R mission and other missions that are precursors to commercial human spaceflights to the Moon. Our organization is actively looking at policies for missions that involve humans and their settlement of the stars.
