HAKUTO-R Mission

Recently, Japanese space startup ispace Inc launched its own private lander M1 to the Moon under its HAKUTO-R mission. The launch was carried out by SpaceX in Cape Canaveral in the US state of Florida.

Key Points: HAKUTO-R is Japan’s first-ever lunar mission and the first of its kind by a private company. HAKUTO-R means ‘white rabbit’ in Japanese.

• Rovers: The M1 lander will deploy two robotic rovers:
  • A two-wheeled, baseball-sized device from Japan’s space agency (JAXA); and
  • The four-wheeled Rashid explorer built by the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
• It is designed in such a way that it will use minimum fuel and leave more room for cargo.
• It will study the properties of the lunar soil, the petrography and geology of the Moon, dust movement, surface plasma conditions, and the Moon’s photoelectron sheath.
• Rashid: Rashid is UAE’s first Moon rover and the Arab world’s first lunar mission.

Significance: If successful, the mission would allow Japan and the UAE to join the United States, Russia and China as the only nations that have successfully landed a craft on the lunar surface.

• The mission would mark the first all-private Moon landing with everything from launch to the landing conducted with privately built vehicles.