ispace Lunar

ispace Inc. (Tokyo Stock Exchange: 9348) is a Tokyo-headquartered commercial lunar exploration company founded in 2010, operating as Japan's leading private lunar mission developer — pursuing a staged roadmap of progressively capable lunar landers and rovers to deliver commercial payloads to the lunar surface and establish an infrastructure for cislunar resource utilization and transportation services.

ispace's HAKUTO-R program (HAKUTO meaning 'white rabbit' in Japanese, a reference to the rabbit in the moon in Japanese folklore) is its flagship mission series. Mission 1 launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare in December 2022 — the first Japanese private spacecraft to reach the Moon. After a four-month ballistic lunar transfer trajectory, the HAKUTO-R Mission 1 lander successfully entered lunar orbit and began the descent sequence in April 2023, but a software altitude estimation error caused the onboard computer to believe the lander was higher than actual, exhausting propellant before touchdown and resulting in a hard landing. The mission nonetheless demonstrated TT&C communication from the Moon, orbital insertion, and the overall mission architecture, providing invaluable data for Mission 2.

Mission 2 is targeting a second landing attempt with a redesigned lander (the Series 2, developed in collaboration with Draper Laboratory) with improved altimetry and autonomous landing GNC (guidance, navigation, and control). Mission 3 plans to deploy the company's Micro Moon Rover — a compact wheeled vehicle for surface mobility and potential sample collection demonstrations. The longer-term RESILIENCE program envisions recurring lunar delivery services with increasing payload capacity, positioning ispace as a commercial analogue to government lunar logistics.

ispace operates European operations through ispace Europe (Luxembourg) and US operations through ispace US (Denver), leveraging local regulatory frameworks for space resource rights. Customers include Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), UAE's Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC — which flew a miniature rover on Mission 1), and commercial payload customers. The company raised approximately ¥10 billion in IPO proceeds in 2022.

Competitors in commercial lunar delivery include Astrobotic (Pittsburgh, Peregrine Mission 1 partial success 2024), Intuitive Machines (Houston, IM-1 landed successfully 2024), and Firefly Aerospace.