SpaceX delays the launch of the Japanese lunar lander again
SpaceX just quit again after launching a Japanese lunar lander.
The Hakuto-R lander, which was built by Tokyo’s ispace company and NASA’s Lunar Lantern cubed were scheduled to launch at the top a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday (Dec. 1) at 3:37 a.m. EST (08:37 GMT). But that’s not the plan anymore.
“After further launch vehicle inspections and data review, we are leaving tomorrow’s launch of @ispace_inc’s HAKUTO-R mission; a new target launch date will be shared once confirmed,” SpaceX. announced via Twitter (opens in a new tab) on Wednesday evening.
Related: Japanese space lander to bring UAE lunar robot to lunar surface by 2022
It was the second such delay for the mission – it was originally due to launch early Wednesday (November 30), but SpaceX pushed things back a day “to allow additional departures before the flight.”
The Falcon 9 ispace’s Mission 1 launch is a veteran of four previous flights. Its first stage previously helped lift the SES-22 communications satellite last June and three batches of SpaceX’s Starlink Internet satellites, company representatives wrote in a description of the next lunar mission (opens in a new tab).
Mission 1 is a test flight for ispace, which wants to see how Hakuto-R performs in deep space and on the lunar surface.
After liftoff, the lander will embark on a roughly four-month journey the moon. If Hakuto-R manages to land on Earth’s nearest neighbor, it will make history; so far, only the space agencies of the United States, China, and the Soviet Union have achieved soft landings on the lunar surface.
A successful touchdown will also allow the United Arab Emirates to make some history of their own; the nation’s first lunar rover, a 22-pound (10-kilogram) robot named Rashidit will deploy from Hakuto-R and survey its surroundings for about 14 Earth days, if all goes according to plan.
NASA also has an interest in the upcoming flight. The agency’s briefcase-sized lunar lantern is designed to hunt for water ice near the moon’s south pole, where NASA plans to build a lunar base through its Artemis program.
The cubesat will do its work from lunar orbit, arriving after a roughly three-month journey through deep space.
Mike Wall is the author of “Over there (opens in a new tab)” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in a new tab). follow us on twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in a new tab) or on Facebook (opens in a new tab).
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